Ambroise Louis Garneray
Encyclopedia
Corsair
Corsairs were privateers, authorized to conduct raids on shipping of a nation at war with France, on behalf of the French Crown. Seized vessels and cargo were sold at auction, with the corsair captain entitled to a portion of the proceeds...
, painter and writer. He served under Robert Surcouf
Robert Surcouf
Robert Surcouf was a famous French corsair. During his legendary career, he captured 47 ships and was renowned for his gallantry and chivalry, earning the nickname of Roi des Corsaires .- Youth :...
and Jean-Marie Dutertre
Jean-Marie Dutertre
Jean-Marie Dutertre was a French privateer. His ships included the Modeste, the Heureux, the Passe-Partout and the Malartic.- Life :...
, and was held prisoner by the British for eight years.
Early life
Garneray was born in Paris (on Rue Saint-Andre-des-arts, in the Latin Quarter) on 19 February 1783. He was the elder son of Jean-François GarnerayJean-François Garneray
Jean-François Garneray was a French painter. He was a student of David.-Children:His three sons were:* Ambroise Louis Garneray , sea painter* Auguste-Siméon Garneray , troubadour style painter...
(1755–1837), painter of the king, who was pupil of Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...
. At thirteen, he joined the Navy as a seaman, encouraged by his cousin, Beaulieu-Leloup, commander of the frigate Forte ("the Stout one"). Garneray sailed from Rochefort to the Indian Ocean with the frigate division under Sercey
Pierre César Charles de Sercey
Pierre César Charles de Sercey was a French admiral, most notable for commanding French naval forces in the Indian Ocean from 1796 to 1800. His name is engraved on the Arc de triomphe.-Early life:...
, to which the Forte belonged.
Garneray took part in the various campaigns of Sercey division and witnessed the hardship it met in the battle against Arrogant
HMS Arrogant (1761)
HMS Arrogant was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 22 January 1761 at Harwich. She was the first of the Arrogant class ships of the line, designed by Sir Thomas Slade....
and Victorious
HMS Victorious (1785)
HMS Victorious was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Blackwall Yard, London on 27 April 1785. She was the first ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name....
. He then served in 1798 on the corvette Brûle Gueule ("Mouth burner"), which patrolled with the frigate Preneuse
French frigate Preneuse (1795)
The Preneuse was a 44-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She served as a commerce raider at Île de France.In March 1798, under Lhermitte, she ferried ambassadors from Mysore sent by Tippu Sultan to île de France to request help against the British...
("the Taker"). Returning from this campaign, the Brûle Gueule and Preneuse were chased by a British squadron comprising two ships of the line, one frigate and one corvette; the French flew into a creek near Black River
Black River (district)
Black River is a district of Mauritius on the western side of the island. Famous areas include Tamarin Falls and the Chamarel coloured earth. The district capital is Bambous. Previously it was Tamarin. It is the third largest District of Mauritius in area, but the smallest in terms of population...
whose shallow waters prevented the British from pursuing. The next day, the British squadron attacked; the French had established strong defensive positions by installing the unusable batteries of their ships ashore, and repelled the British squadron.
In 1799, Garneray was promoted to quartermaster
Quartermaster
Quartermaster refers to two different military occupations depending on if the assigned unit is land based or naval.In land armies, especially US units, it is a term referring to either an individual soldier or a unit who specializes in distributing supplies and provisions to troops. The senior...
and "first painter of the edge" on the Preneuse under captain Jean-Marthe-Adrien l'Hermite
Jean-Marthe-Adrien l'Hermite
Jean-Marthe-Adrien L'Hermitte was a French sea captain and rear admiral, notable for his involvement in the Glorious First of June and various other campaigns.- Early career :L'Hermitte was born to the family of a...
. The frigate was the last French official force in the Indian Ocean. This patrol went into trouble, in spite of an exceptional combat against the British ship of the line the Jupiter
HMS Jupiter (1778)
HMS Jupiter was a 50-gun Portland-class fourth rate ship of the Royal Navy. She served during the American War of Independence, the French Revolutionary Wars, and the Napoleonic Wars in a career that spanned thirty years....
. Returning to Mauritius, her crew suffered from scurvy, and the Preneuse had to be kept quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
d and had to return to the British forces making the blockade of the island. Garneray escaped captivity by regaining the coast with the stroke. In spite of the disaster, Garneray kept longstanding admiration and friendship for to Lhermitte, whom he would continue to visit until his death 1826.
Robert Surcouf
Robert Surcouf was a famous French corsair. During his legendary career, he captured 47 ships and was renowned for his gallantry and chivalry, earning the nickname of Roi des Corsaires .- Youth :...
as an ensign
Ensign (rank)
Ensign is a junior rank of a commissioned officer in the armed forces of some countries, normally in the infantry or navy. As the junior officer in an infantry regiment was traditionally the carrier of the ensign flag, the rank itself acquired the name....
, from April at December 1800. He took part in the capturing and boarding the Kent
HMS Kent (1798)
HMS Kent was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 January 1798 at Blackwall Yard.She became a sheer hulk in 1856, and was broken up in 1881....
in October 1800. It was the only time where Garneray made money as a sailor. Upon returning from patrol, he invested his share in a slave trading ship, l'Union, on which he was a first mate.
He sailed on various trading ships during the peace of Amiens, after which he served aboard the Pinson ("the Finch"), a cutter based in Île Bourbon. He replaced the commander when he died, and was shipwrecked shortly thereafter. He then served on the corsair Tigre du Bengale and eventually on the frigate Atalante attached to the squadron of Linois
Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois
Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand, Comte de Linois was a French admiral during the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. He won a victory over the British at the Battle of Algeciras in 1801 and was reasonably successful in a campaign against British trade in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea in...
. He later served on the Belle Poule ("beautiful chick"), and was aboard when she was captured by the British in March 1806. Wounded, Garneray was led in England and spent the eight following years on prison hulk
Prison ship
A prison ship, historically sometimes called a prison hulk, is a vessel used as a prison, often to hold convicts awaiting transportation to penal colonies. This practice was popular with the British government in the 18th and 19th centuries....
s off Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
(on the Protée, the Couronne ("Crown") and the Vengeance
HMS Vengeance (1774)
HMS Vengeance was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 25 June 1774 at Rotherhithe.She became a prison ship in 1808, and was broken up in 1816....
. He was able to improve his standard of living by selling paintings to a British merchant.
A statement attributed to him goes: "But for piracy, I believe that I practiced about all kinds of navigation".
Life as a painter
Elba
Elba is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino. The largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago, Elba is also part of the National Park of the Tuscan Archipelago and the third largest island in Italy after Sicily and Sardinia...
. The work was carried out only in 1834 as, because of the political climate of the Bourbon Restoration
Bourbon Restoration
The Bourbon Restoration is the name given to the period following the successive events of the French Revolution , the end of the First Republic , and then the forcible end of the First French Empire under Napoleon – when a coalition of European powers restored by arms the monarchy to the...
, he felt it more convenient to paint the Descent of the French emigrants at Quiberon, which was exhibited at the Salon de Paris in 1815. Garneray attended the salon every year from then.
Garneray came to be employed by the duke of Angoulême
Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angouleme
Louis Antoine of France, Duke of Angoulême was the eldest son of Charles X of France and, from 1824 to 1836, the last Dauphin of France...
, then Grand Admiral
Grand Admiral
Grand admiral is a historic naval rank, generally being the highest such rank present in any particular country. Its most notable use was in Germany — the German word is Großadmiral.-France:...
of France, and became his appointed painter in 1817. He was in fact the first Peintre de la Marine
Peintre de la Marine
Peintre de la Marine is a title awarded by the minister of defence in France to artists who have devoted their talents to the sea, the French Navy and other maritime subjects...
("official painter of the Navy"). Between 1821 and 1830, he went in many harbours of France where he made numerous sketches which were used as a basis for engravings or fabrics.
In 1833, he was made director of the museum of Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
. He later joined the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres
Manufacture nationale de Sèvres
The manufacture nationale de Sèvres is a Frit porcelain porcelain tendre factory at Sèvres, France. Formerly a royal, then an imperial factory, the facility is now run by the Ministry of Culture.-Brief history:...
. In the 1830s he developed a new genre of painting, the aquatint
Aquatint
Aquatint is an intaglio printmaking technique, a variant of etching.Intaglio printmaking makes marks on the matrix that are capable of holding ink. The inked plate is passed through a printing press together with a sheet of paper, resulting in a transfer of the ink to the paper...
, and also developed a major career of engraving. In 1840s, his fame seems to have dimmed; he lost most of his political supporters and fell into poverty. By the time of Napoleon III, he took part in the failed coup d'état of Strasbourg. He experienced a short return of glory towards the beginning of the Second French Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
, as he was awarded the Legion of honour in 1852 by vice admiral Bergeret and the Emperor himself.
Paintings
The pictorial work of Garneray comprises 141 oil paintings, 176 engravings and 22 watercolour paintings. Part of his work was inspired by his adventurous life, such as the capture of Kent by Surcouf; others were made as peintre officiel de la Marine, in continuation of the works of Claude Joseph Vernet and Nicolas OzanneNicolas Ozanne
Nicolas-Marie Ozanne was a marine artist, author of a naval treatise and creator of a series of 60 views of the ports of France. His work witnesses to the French Navy of his time, particularly the Ponant fleet.-Life:...
. Most notably, he realised 64 sights of French harbours and 40 sights of foreign harbours (engravings), following the journeys he accomplished in the 1820s. Some of the paintings were given to the Paris Chamber of Commerce
Paris Chamber of Commerce
The Paris Chamber of Commerce is a Chamber of Commerce of the Paris region. It defends the interests of 310,000 corporations of the Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, and Val-de-Marne départements that create 20% of France's GDP.The CCIP was created on February 25, 1803 by Napoléon...
by the industrialist Meunier.
His two brothers Hippolyte and Auguste, like his sister Pauline, also practised painting to a lesser extent. That explains the variations of signatures (sometimes Garneray, sometimes Garnerey), which were to distinguish the painters of the family.
In literature
Garneray's depictions were mentioned in Herman MelvilleHerman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
's novel Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
:
Literary works by Garneray
Garneray wrote epic depictions of his adventures, becoming one of the precursors of the maritime novel of adventure.During his stay in Rouen, he published articles about his sailing and captivity days. He offered these texts to the Ministry of Education in 1847 "for edification of the youth", which politely rebuffed him. His posthumous celebrity stems from the fad of more or less apocryphal memoirs of combatants of Revolution and of Empire which became popular in the 1860s. Garneray's memoirs were published in three volumes as Aventures et Combats. They are suspected to have been at least partly rewritten by professional writers, notably Édouard Corbière
Édouard Corbière
Jean Antoine René Édouard Corbière was a French sailor, shipowner, journalist and writer, considered to be the father of the French maritime novel.- Early years :...
, introducing spectacular but irrealistic elements:
- Lhermitte being poisoned in Mauritius, a thesis often repeated in biographies of Lhermitte; in fact, from 1798 until his death, he suffered from a tropical disease, probably an acute form of MalariaMalariaMalaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
. - the obfuscated story of Kernau's death
- Garneray being personally involved in incidents which he probably described without being an actor, like the shipwreck of the Amphitrite
Hence, his memoirs are not considered to be a serious historical source. However, Sentant fort le goudron and Mes Pontons do constitute testimonies of everyday life in the navy of the time.
Various versions were published as
- Corsaire de la République , Voyages, adventures and combat, Paris, Phébus, 1984; Rééd. Payot, 1991
- Le Négrier de Zanzibar , Voyages, adventures and combat, Paris, Phébus, 1985; Rééd. Payot, 1992
- Un Corsaire au bagne. Mes pontons , Paris, Phébus, 1985; Rééd. Payot, 1992
- Un Corsaire de quinze ans ,
- Un Marin de Surcouf
- Les Naufragés du Saint Antoine