Early Life

Born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, Benjamin West (1738 –1820) was the tenth child of John West and Sarah Pearson, who ran a small inn. As a young boy West had shown considerable artistic talent and was sent to Philadelphia at the age of 18 to study painting. Two years later he was a successful portraitist in New York and at 22, with the sponsorship of wealthy friends and supporters, he sailed for Italy where, as was common for artists, architects and art lovers, he undertook a Grand Tour of Italy’s leading cities. In Rome, West studied neoclassicism, copied works of Italian Renaissance and Baroque masters and met several international neoclassical artists including Anton Rafael Mengs, Gavin Hamilton and Angelica Kauffman.  

Life in England

West came to England in 1763, where he secured patronage from the Archbishop of York, and was introduced to King George III (reigned 1760-1820), who was eager to support the creation of a distinguished national school of painting in England. Alongside Sir Joshua Reynolds and other leading artists and architects, he established the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768.  

During this period, and until 1801, West enjoyed royal patronage from the King and was described as ‘Historical Painter to the King’ by Royal Academy catalogues. One of his most celebrated portraits depicts King George III as a confident military commander holding a paper recording troop positions. 

When Sir Joshua Reynolds died in 1792, West was elected the Royal Academy’s second president. The King offered him a knighthood, but West turned it down, apparently in the mistaken belief that he might be offered a peerage instead.   

The Chapel Altarpiece

After a devastating fire in January 1779, the Chapel that was part of Sir Christopher Wren’s original design for the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich was rebuilt by British architect and neoclassical artist James ‘Athenian’ Stuart (1713-1788) with a finely decorated ceiling and naval themes.  

Central to this scheme, at a colossal 25 x 14 feet, was West’s epic floor to ceiling painting, Preservation of St Paul after a Shipwreck at Malta. Commissioned from West by the Directors of the Greenwich Hospital in July 1786 for £1200 (around £104,000 in today’s money), it is one of his most important works and the only one to survive in its original location.   

The painting demonstrates the range of West’s talents and his ability to mix profound subject matter with a dramatic handling of light, movement and narrative. The composition depicts the scene in the Acts of the Apostles in which Saint Paul is shipwrecked on his way to Rome where he will be prosecuted. At the centre, Paul stands heroically over a fire lit by the ship’s passengers to keep warm. Intruding on the scene is the snake from whose poisonous bite Paul miraculously feels no effect. The maritime scene would have been appropriate for the Chapel, which served naval pensioners, many of whom might have recognised their own experiences in West’s narrative. 

The Four Graces

Another part of the new scheme for the Chapel were statues of the Four Graces, placed in wall niches in the vestibule. The life-sized statues represent the virtues Faith, Meekness, Charity and Hope, and were intended to reflect qualities that all Christians are called to cultivate, both in themselves and in their relationship to others.  

The statues were made of artificial stone called Coade stone at Eleanor Coade’s factory at Lambeth. This type of stone offered new opportunities for fine-detailed decoration and was used for many neoclassical sculptural projects across the country. The ease with which it could be moulded into complex shapes made it ideal for large statues, sculptures and sculptural façades. 

The modelling of the Four Graces may have been carried out by the well-respected British sculptor John Bacon, whose work can also be seen at St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey in London. Bacon appears to have supervised many of the large commissions at the Coade factory for more than 25 years. 

The Nelson Pediment

Although the victory at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 was a cause for national celebration, for Britain it also resulted in the loss of its greatest naval commander, Admiral Lord Nelson. His death at the height of his fame inspired a cult of hero-worship, and images in paint, print and stone proliferated. A competition for a monument commemorating Nelson at St. Paul’s Cathedral was won by John Flaxman (1755–1826), who started work in 1808, three years after the naval hero’s death. It was installed ten years later, in 1818.   

Benjamin West had met Nelson at a dinner not long before the latter’s last, fateful journey, and had told him he would gladly paint him. He kept his promise. In 1806, he painted The Death of Nelson, which shows the great British naval hero on the deck of the Victory after being shot by a French sniper. Crowds flocked to see this work when West exhibited it in his house just a few months after the Battle of Trafalgar. In 1807, he exhibited The Immortality of Nelson at the Royal Academy (it is now at the National Maritime Museum). This painting shows the subject being elevated to heaven, glorified and accompanied by various personifications. Conceived originally as a painted element in a Nelson monument, this artwork was part of the continuing development of West as an artist comfortable working in two and three dimensions.  

West evidently felt that Greenwich, with its large population of retired naval officers, was a suitable location for a memorial to Nelson. In August 1810, he sent a letter to John Dyer, the Secretary of the Royal Hospital of Seamen, containing a description and preliminary sketch of his proposed scheme, which was a stretched and developed version of his Immortality of Nelson. 

While decorated pediments are relatively common in cities today, this was not the case in early-nineteenth-century London. By proposing a pediment depicting a contemporary public figure, West went against artistic conventions of the time. Nevertheless, the Hospital Board approved of his proposal and gave him the go-ahead for the pediment’s execution, which was underway by November 1811 and unveiled a year later. 

The pediment, ten feet high and 40 feet wide, overlooks the King William Court and was originally designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. In the centre, Britannia – the personification of Britain – is cast in shadow to convey the nation’s grief. The dead body of Nelson, a Christ-like figure, is raised by Neptune (God of the Sea). The winged figure of Victory supports the body of the hero with her right hand. With her left hand, she passes Britannia a trident, symbol of Britain’s dominion of the sea.

A lion holds a tablet bearing the inscription: ‘Nelson, 122 battles.’ The winged infant next to the lion holds a plaque inscribed with two of Nelson’s most famous naval victories: The Nile and Copenhagen. Behind Neptune, a British sailor holds a tablet inscribed with the word ‘Trafalgar’, Nelson’s last battle and place of death. The three female figures on the right are meant to be sisters, who represent England, Scotland and Ireland. Each one is identified by a symbol: Scotland, on the left, holds a thistle; England, in the middle, holds a rose; and Ireland, on the right, holds a shamrock. All three women are overcome by sorrow, representing the nation’s grief at Nelson’s death.

Like the Four Graces, the Nelson Pediment was made of Coade stone. At £2,584, its cost was still a fraction of what it would have been if executed in Portland stone, which was in high demand and took longer to produce the same results. West’s collaborator at the Coade Factory for the Nelson Pediment was Joseph Panzetta, who worked there for over 26 years; it is said that the Coade workers regarded their work for Greenwich as their finest.

A contemporary account suggests that West was closely involved, complaining of exhaustion from ‘Having had to superintend the progress of work carrying on at Coade’s Manufactory, to commemorate Lord Nelson, from my designs for Greenwich Hospital…by day and by night’.

Later Years

In 1802, when the Treaty of Amiens halted the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and France, West visited France and exhibited his painting Death on a Pale Horse in the Paris Salon. It was seen by Napoleon, who admired it and met briefly with West. This trip proved costly for the artist though as, afterwards, he fell out of favour with George III who cancelled his annual stipend along with a prestigious commission for His Majesty’s Chapel in Windsor, which was expected to be part of a series illustrating biblical passages from Genesis through to Revelations.  

Benjamin West is considered one of the first American painters to gain an international reputation. He was a leading figure in American art due to his fresh approach to history, painting and his generosity. As a counsellor, teacher and friend to three generations of American artists who came to England to study, West provided advice, instruction, food, money, and in many cases, a job as his studio assistant. As an avid collector of drawings, paintings, prints of the old masters and casts of classical sculpture, his home and studio provided his American students, as well as English artists, with a readily available gallery of art.  

Benjamin West died in London in March 1820, just two months after George III, whose patronage he had enjoyed for much of his career. He was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral, the only American-born person to have had that honour, one that he shared with Lord Nelson.  

After conservation work on Benjamin West’s altarpiece in 2022 and the Four Graces statues in 2024, both artworks can now be seen in their full splendour. The Old Royal Naval College’s mission is to enrich people’s lives by protecting this architectural masterpiece and sharing its history, heritage and significance. As a charity, every ticket, event and donation helps us protect some of the nation’s finest art and architecture and share its significance widely. 

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