La Bataille de Trafalgar, vue depuis les haubans de misaine tribord du Victory

When HMS Victory came home to the Medway at the end of 1805, carrying Nelson's body preserved in a cask of spirits, Turner went aboard, sketched the ship and talked with the crew. The Battle of Trafalgar had been fought that October, and the country was still absorbing the strange news that its greatest naval victory had also cost it its most famous admiral. Turner tried to get the whole thing onto one canvas, not a tidy line of ships but the confusion of it, seen from high in the rigging of the Victory herself, with signal flags spelling out Nelson's last message to the fleet. He showed the picture half finished in his own gallery in 1806, then kept reworking it for two more years.