A Batalha de Trafalgar

This was Turner's only royal commission, and it nearly ruined his standing at court. George IV wanted a grand tribute to Nelson's victory of 1805, so in the early 1820s Turner set to work on the largest canvas he ever painted, over three and a half metres wide. He hung it in St James's Palace in 1824, and within days the complaints started. Naval officers who had actually fought at Trafalgar picked it apart, because Turner had folded several separate moments of the day into one scene. You can read the ship's rigging at the top as flag signals spelling out Nelson's famous message that England expects every man to do his duty. In the water below, men are drowning among the splintered wreckage while the smoke closes over everything. Five years later George IV quietly handed the picture over to the naval hospital at Greenwich, where it still hangs today.