An Action Off Dunkerque on July 7th, 1800 is a dramatic sea painting by one of America's earliest marine painters, Robert Salmon.

The details of the artist's life are rather sketchy. Salmon was born in Whitehaven, Cumberland, England (on the Scottish border) in 1775. His family probably worked as mariners. Salmon moved to London in the late 1790s and then to Liverpool in 1806. Scholars have suggested that he may not have been able to support himself solely by painting and because he was living in a shipbuilding center, Salmon may have supplemented his income by working on a ship or in shipping. Certainly, the detailed depictions of the ships in his works suggest an intimate knowledge of ships and the sea.

Salmon lived in Greenock, Scotland from 1811-22 and from 1822-28 lived in a succession of cities. In 1828 Salmon emigrated to America. Salmon stayed in America until 1842 and established a reputation as a leading painter of maritime subjects. The artist settled in Boston and did ship "portraits" as well as more general maritime scenes. As he did in England, Salmon also painted theatrical scenery and panoramas. In 1828 he was commissioned to do a drop curtain for the Federal Street Theater and in 1830 did a series of 15-foot panoramas of naval battles of Algiers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries panoramas (a scene or scenes painted on a long roll of canvas) were used as a form of entertainment. A long canvas would either be stretched around the walls of a room or put on two cylinders and slowly unrolled while accompanied by a lecture or music.

The record of his works ceases in 1840. (Salmon's eyesight may have been failing.) The artist had an auction of his works in 1842 and left Boston that same year. Presumably, he returned to England, for a work dated in 1843 bears an address label from Liverpool. His last dated work was done in 1845. There is no record of his death date.

An Action off Dunkerque on July 7, 1800 is a rare early work by Salmon done while in London, before his move to Liverpool. The conflict takes place off the French coast near the major seaport of Dunkerque. Information accompanying the work notes that in this painting:

"The Sloop Dart of 30 guns, commanded by Captain Patrick Campbell with four fireships attacked four French frigates . . . Dart boarded and captured the Desiree of 38 guns, but the fireships did no good against the others."

The fireships are the four ships that are ablaze in the right-hand side of the painting. Fireships were exactly what the name implied: ships which were deliberately set afire and designed to ram against the enemy ships to set them ablaze as well. The crew would set an explosion with a long trail of powder, get as close to the enemy ship as possible and then escape the fireship in a boat towed astern or alongside. Thus in this painting the men in the boats by the fireship were probably her crew.

Salmon portrays this scene at the dramatic height of the conflict. The fireships are fully ablaze with the red smoke filling the sky and men fighting in hand to hand combat on the British ship. The elaborate rigging and detailed rendering of the ships are typical of Salmon's intricate and knowledgeable portrayal of such marine subjects. Even in such an early work, Salmon's signature style is in place: precise, smooth brushstokes, a low horizon line and dramatic sky.

While he lived in America, Salmon's works were widely known and had an impact on other artists working in the early nineteenth century, most notably Fitz Henry Lane (link) and Martin Johnson Heade. In fact, in the Hunter catalog of the collection William Henning notes that Salmon's Boston Harbor from Constitution Wharf seemed like a definite inspiration for the Hunter's work by Lane, The Constitution in Boston Harbor (link), because the formats are so remarkably similar.