Sir John Edmund Commerell

by Théobald Chartran ('T')
watercolour, published in Vanity Fair 24 December 1881
11 7/8 in. x 7 3/8 in. (302 mm x 187 mm)
Purchased, 1958
Primary Collection
NPG 4060

Sitterback to top

Sir John Edmund Commerell (1829-1901), Admiral. Sitter in 5 portraits.

Artistback to top

Théobald Chartran ('T') (1849-1907), Painter and caricaturist. Artist associated with 86 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

Saywell, David; Simon, Jacob, Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 2004, p. 138

Subject/Themeback to top

Watercolour

Events of 1881back to top

Current affairs

Benjamin Disraeli dies of bronchitis. He refuses a state funeral and is buried next to his wife, Mary Ann Viscountess Beaconsfield.
Gladstone's Irish Land Act is passed in a bid to stop violence carried out by the republican Land League, conducted in protest at the 1870 Land Act.
Henry Mayers Hyndman forms the Marxist Democratic Federation.

Art and science

The Natural History Museum is opened on Exhibition Road, South Kensington. The museum, a landmark gothic design by the architect Alfred Waterhouse, was built to house specimens from the natural sciences, previously in the British Museum's collection. Today, the museum comprises of over 70 million items, and is a world-renowned research centre.

International

Alexander II is assassinated in a bomb attack by members of a left-wing revolutionary movement. He was succeeded by his son, Tsar Alexander III.
US President James Garfield is shot by Charles Guiteau.
The first Anglo-Boer war ends. The war is started by a Boer uprising, as the British had annexed the Transvaal in 1877. Following Britain's defeat at the Battle of Majuba Hill, a truce is signed giving the Boers self-government and later independence.

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