'Culloden' man of war RMG PW5783

'Culloden' man of war
Inscribed in black ink 'Culloden man of war', lower left, and signed 'D Serres', lower right, in a browner ink. The particular interest of this drawing is that it is clearly modelled on the similar studies of the van de Veldes, especially Willem the Elder, a century earlier. Serres' considerable collection of other artists' drawings included a number by the van de Veldes of which the Museum has at least two (Robinson I: 294 and Robinson II, 1026).
The Navy had three 74-gun ships called 'Culloden' in rapid succession, the name commemorating the defeat of the Scottish Jacobites there by the 'Butcher' Duke of Cumberland in 1746. The first was built in 1747 and sold in 1770; the second built in 1776 and wrecked on Long Island in 1781, and the third built in 1783 and broken up in 1813.

The Museum has a detailed drawing of the stern of the 1776 ship as part of her sheer draught (ZAZ0978) which shows that she had eight stern windows to her great cabin, two arched ones on each side on the open quarter-deck gallery above and separate quarter carvings on each level at either side. That is not what is shown here: there are only seven great cabin windows, no arched ones above and the quarter figures - apparently of contemporary soldiers- bracket both deck levels. The ship shown is therefore the 'Culloden' of 1783, of which the Museum also has a few plans but none showing the stern detail.