Description

Winter in the Bay of Biscay brings ferocious gales, mountainous seas and bitter cold discomfort for ship’s crews. Early in his assignment aboard the British Navy frigate ‘ Indefatigable’, Horatio Hornblower, C S Forester’s dashing 18th-century naval officer, experienced the worst of conditions at sea while blockading the ports off the west coast of France.
Robert Taylor’s painting depicts an exchange of cannon fire between Indefatigable – on the left- and a 40-gun French frigate attempting to run the blockade on a chill winter’s morning. Moments later the two hulls crashed alongside each other and the Frenchman was boarded and taken.

Signed in pencil by the artist Robert Taylor