Nelson encountering a bear, c.1854 (grey wash, heightened with white, watercolour, graphite)

Creator: Myles Birket Foster One of a group of 11 designs for wood-engravings, out of 32 that Birkett Foster did, to illustrate the 1854 edition of Southey's 'Life of Nelson' published by David Bogue, London. The others, not all in necessarily finished form and not in chronological order, are PAE5373-PAE5383. This one was engraved (coloured) as the title plate of the book and is Foster's take on a legendary incident of Nelson's youth when serving as coxswain to Captain Skeffington Lutwidge of the 'Carcass' on Constantine Phipps's Spitzbergen expedition in 1773. He set out to shoot a bear in order to get its skin for his father, but the musket misfired and he was lucky to escape with his life owing to a crack in the ice separating him from the animal, and the fact that he was spotted and 'Carcass' fired a gun, which frightened the bear off. The most famous representation, which Foster clearly knew from the composition here, was by Benjamin West (BHC2097) and was engraved in the Clarke and McArthur 'Life of Nelson' of 1809. Other images in the edition were done by Edward Duncan (10) or reproduced pictures by Richard Westall, Sir Thomas Lawrence and other uncredited but mostly identifiable sources. The title here is as published. For Foster's full contributions to the edition see PAE5373.