The Death of Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar
The Death of Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar is an 1874 etching that hung in the restaurant of the Parliament Building. Inscriptions cite the engraving by William Sharpe of a painting by Daniel Maclise, a gift of the Council of Art Union of London in 1906.
Layers of action capture cacophonous battle: nurses tend the wounded, one of whom leans on an object that identifies the HMS Victory. Cannoneers aim their stout guns, infantrymen load and fire, sailors scurry up the rigging. At the centre of the composition lies the doomed Nelson, his officers leaning in, an arrangement that reverse-mirrors Benjamin West’s famous painting The Death of General Wolfe.