"Glory through Death" Topic

"On December 23, 1805, James Gillray published The Death of Admiral Lord Nelson — in the Moment of Victory!. It depicts the English naval hero, mortally wounded during the Battle of Trafalgar, drawing his last breath. This print has not been studied in any depth, perhaps, at least in part, because viewers seem not to have known how to read it. The National Maritime Museum's website describes it as "brilliantly ironic,"1 but the irony seems to have been lost on most. Writing in 1851, Thomas Wright and R.H. Evans, early editors of Gillray's work, called it a "rather feeble attempt at celebrating the great battle of Trafalgar, fought on the 24th [sic] of October, 1805, in which Nelson fell in the moment of Victory."2 In keeping with her usual deadpan descriptive entries, the caricature scholar Dorothy George described it simply as "An allegorical design combined with a quasi-realistic scene on the deck of the Victory,"3 which may explain why more recent readings have similarly missed the irony. In her book Women, Nationalism, and the Romantic Stage, for instance, Betsy Bolton argued that Gillray's print is "ostensibly serious, submitted to the Lord Mayor of London as one possible model for a Nelson memorial."4 And again, on the website of a Philadelphia printseller advertising the caricature, Gillray's representation is taken seriously:…"
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Amicalement
Armand