SAMUEL SCOTT | THE BATTLE OF PORTO BELLO

Private collection, Australia.

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 19 July 1985, lot 60A;

Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Heine, Underberg, Manley, Myerson and Casey, New York;

By whom sold, New York, Christie's, 20 October 1988, lot 156;

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 14 April 2016, lot 349, where acquired.

The capture of Porto Bello was part of a campaign known as 'The War of Jenkins' Ear', which was fought by England against Spain, in the West Indian colonies. Robert Jenkins, a merchant sea captain, had his ear cut off by a Spanish officer at Havana in 1731, leading to calls in Parliament for war with Spain. It was not until the summer of 1739 however that, during a House of Commons debate, Captain Edward Vernon (1684-1757) claimed he could take the Spanish town of Porto Bello - on the north side of the Isthmus of Darien between Columbia and Panama - with only six ships.

Vernon's fleet anchored off Porto Bello on 20 November, and began their assault on the Iron Castle, or 'Castillo de Ferro', the following day. The very next morning, the Spanish governor, Don Francisco Martinez de Retez, sent a flag of truce and accepted the Vice-Admiral's terms of surrender. The enterprise proved a brilliant tactical victory - as much due to Vernon's audacity as to the weakness of his opponents - and in England he was celebrated as a hero.

Several versions of this composition exist: in the collection of H.M.S. Vernon at Portsmouth;¹ and another sold at Christie's, London, 12 April 1991, lot 72. A different interpretation of the battle by Scott, painted as a distorted bird's-eye view, is in the National Maritime Museum, London (inv. no. BHC0354).²

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¹ See R. Kingzett, 'A Catalogue of the Works of Samuel Scott', in The Walpole Society, vol. XLVIII, 1982, p. 26, cat. no. 7b.

² https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-capture-of-puerto-bello-21-november-1739-175521