Prisoners of War, 1805. 1885. Oil on canvas. 60 x 101 inches (152.4 x 256.5 cm). Collection of Glasgow Museums Resource Centre, accession no. 1092. Kindly made available via Art UK on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885, no. 67, and then later that same year at Birmingham. In this picture Yeames has chosen to paint a scene from the time period of the Napoleonic Wars. Two young British midshipmen have been captured and taken to a French seaport. The year mentioned in the title was that of the famous Battle of Trafalgar, a naval engagement that took place on 21 October 1805 where the British Royal Navy defeated the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies. The young midshipmen portrayed in Yeames's picture, however, could not have been captured during this battle because the British navy had no ships captured or destroyed by the enemy. The two midshipmen are portrayed lazily sitting on casks outside a building and guarded by a solitary French soldier. Fishermen, their wives and children, as well as a priest, look with curiosity but not outright hostility upon the pair. In the midground a group of soldiers can be seen marching along the quay. In the distance are cliffs surrounding the town and to the left the sea with two large naval vessels at anchor. Based on his likeness within other paintings, Yeames's nephew, James Lambe Yeames, was the model for the younger of the two midshipmen, although he was now older than this would suggest.
When the picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy it received favourable reviews. The Art Journal reported: "Mr. Yeames's 'Prisoners of War' (67). Two little midshipmen brought ashore at a French port, and the object of wonderment and interest to all the fisher-folk" (258). A reviewer for The Builder liked the contrasting portrayal of the two lads: "Opposite to it Mr. Yeames makes rather a success with a large painting called Prisoners of War: 1805 (67), two midshipmen under the charge of a stolid French sentinel; one of them, a mere child, regarded with great sympathy by the French women among the spectators. The character of the two lads is very well contrasted" (686). The critic of The Illustrated London News also found the picture worthy of notice and felt it would prove popular:
Mr. Yeames' Prisoners of War (67), two young middies brought ashore at a French port, and the object of mingled curiosity and pity on the part of the fishermen and women, cannot fail to be popular. The two boys – one defiant, the other a little sobered by his wound – are seated on some casks, under the guard of a huge gendarme. The fisher-folk are gathered around them; and one little girl is advancing in a simple yet coquettish way towards the boy scarcely bigger than herself, and seems anxious to throw over him her protecting power. [481]
F. G. Stephens in The Athenaeum particularly admired the representations of the two midshipmen:
Prisoners of War, 1805 (67), contains at least two figures which more than atone for Dessert. It shows the quai of a French port, where two English "middies," lately captured or exposed, under guard of a grim soldier of Napoleon, to the notice and more or less good-natured comments of a crowd of fishermen, their wives and daughters. The leading woman seems (we are not quite certain that this is the painter's intention) to be pleading for the good treatment or release of the lads. This group is so essentially commonplace that it does not much matter what is meant by it. Not so, however, the captives, one of whom defies fate and his foes with a jaunty air which will somehow get him through; he is a manly fellow. The other boy, whose wounded arm is bound under his jacket, seems pale with pain and fatigue; he has plenty of courage, and his blue eyes do not flinch, though they tell what he has undergone, not that he fears to suffer. Mr. Yeames might have given all that is good in this picture on a canvas one-fourth the size, but we are obliged to him for what we have. [636]
The critic of The Spectator felt this was one of the "pictorial successes" of the exhibition and admired its clever dramatic effects:
It is a treat to see Mr. Yeames doing something more worthy of his reputation as an Academician than his latter pictures. This year his Prisoners of War must be counted as one of the pictorial successes of the season. It shows us two English middies in a French seaport, guarded by an old French soldier, and gazed curiously upon by the fishermen and women of the place. The painting is adequate and the colour pleasant, but the strength of the conception lies in its grasp of the occasion. Dramatically, it is clever in the extreme; the pose and expression of the middies make the picture, and deserve to make it. In the shortest words, Mr. Yeames has "hit the mark." [785]
Bibliography
"Art. The Royal Academy." The SpectatorLVIII (13 June 1885): 784-85.
Blackburn, Henry. Academy Notes Issue XI. London: Chatto and Windus, 1885. 23.
"The Chronicle of Art." The Magazine of Art VIII (September 1885): xiviii.
"Further Notes on Academy Pictures." The Builder XLVIII (16 May 1885): 686-87.
Prisoners of War. Art UK. Web. 2 September 2023.
"The Royal Academy." The Illustrated London News LXXXVI (9 May 1885): 481.
"The Royal Academy. III – Figure Painters." The Art Journal New Series XXIV (1885): 257-58.
Stephens, Frederic George. "The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 3003 (16 May 1885): 635-37.
Created 2 September 2023