Toulon Blockade
$170.00 – $680.00
HMS Surprise and HMS Victory, 19th June 1796
The real Surprise meets Victory…
Geoff Hunt confirmed from Surprise’s logbook that this ship, famous in fact and fiction, met up with the great Victory. This took place only two months after the real Surprise had been captured from the French (for whom she had been named l’Unité) when, in June 1796 on her first commission, Captain Miller was ordered to report with Surprise to Admiral Sir John Jervis, then commanding the blockade of Toulon from HMS Victory.
Surprise stayed with the fleet for only a day and a night before being ordered to the Adriatic and so this painting is of the first and possibly unique meeting of two of the greatest names in naval mythology – and has a suitably beautiful and romantic atmosphere.