Located in Lymington, Hampshire
These charming English School portraits show the subjects half-length by a desk, the surgeon with a skull at his elbow and his wife with an open writing box. Oil on canvas within a gilded frame and accompanied by five related letters. English, circa 1810.
Footnote: Robert Prideaux died aged 36 in 1818 but in his short life he managed to rise rapidly through the ranks as a naval surgeon. The Naval Chronicle Vol. 19 (1808) records his appointment as a surgeon, aged only 26, on the cutter Sprightly and that he moved to the Lily by the end of the same year. In 1809, a member of the crew of the vessel Polyphemus was involved in a drunken incident that culminated in him being sick on the quarter-deck of the Lily whilst both vessels were docked at Port Royal in Jamaica. This led to a Court Martial appearance for one Joseph Fountain, the Master at Arms...
Category
1810s Antique British Decorative Art