Michael Zeno Diemer

It has been suggested that the ship depicted is HMS Victory, of the Royal Navy, ordered in 1758 and launched in 1765. She is best known for her role as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.

Zeno Diemer’s name is today synonymous with the accurate portrayal of shipping off various Mediterranean coasts. However, following his training at the Munich Academy he first established his name and reputation as a painter of battle scenes. Most famously, in 1894, over the course of six months, he worked in Innsbruck on a one thousand square metre circular panorama, known as the Innsbrucker Riesenrundgemälde, of the battles of Bergisel (1809), in which forces led by Andreas Hofer defeated the armies of Napoleon and the Kingdom of Bavaria.