Why it matters
A small, blackened steam tug pulls the ghostly warship Temeraire, a hero of Trafalgar, up the Thames in 1838 to be broken up for scrap. In a 2005 BBC Radio 4 poll it was voted the nation's favourite painting.
Did you know?
- It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839.
- Turner left it to the nation in his bequest of 1851.
- It appears on the £20 banknote introduced in 2020.
- It cannot be determined whether Turner actually witnessed the scene.
Based on the Wikipedia article The Fighting Temeraire (CC BY-SA 4.0).
