Thomas Whitcombe

THOMAS WHITCOMBE Circa 1752 - 1824 Thomas Whitcombe painted major naval battles from the American War of Independence to the Napoleonic Wars, recording the battle of the Saintes, Camperdown and the Nile, among others. He was skilled at painting the majestic and deadly array of ships drawn up in battle line. Little is known of Thomas Whitcombe’s life, despite his eminence as a marine painter. His output was large, and he contributed greatly to recording the naval side of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. He produced paintings for the fifty plates of The Naval Achievements of Great Britain, published after the wars, and made paintings for at least one hundred more wartime engravings, as well as depicting peaceful subjects such as coastal scenes. Whitcombe exhibited one painting at the British Institution, in 1820. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1783 to 1824, working from London addresses.