Design for "The Three Captains Memorial"

Design for "The Three Captains Memorial"

Joseph Nollekens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A leading neoclassical sculptor, Nollekens was commissioned to design an important marble monument in Westminster Abbey to commemorate British naval valor in the recent Anglo-French war. Begun around 1784, and finally erected in 1793, the related 25 foot high monument remains on view in the north transept. It commemorates William Bayne, William Blair and Lord Robert Manners, three captains of the Royal Navy all killed during the Battle of Les Saintes in the West Indies, a four day conflict in 1782 known to the French as the Bataille de la Dominique. Relief portraits appear on a central column with the officers' names and ages inscribed, and the design is embelished with allegories of Fame, Neptune riding a seahorse, and Britannia supported by a lion. An inscribed plaque in the base credits Admiral Sir George Brydges Rodney as commander, and George III and Parliament for funding the monument.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Design for "The Three Captains Memorial"Design for "The Three Captains Memorial"Design for "The Three Captains Memorial"Design for "The Three Captains Memorial"Design for "The Three Captains Memorial"

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.