JMW Turner pictures painted of Gosport and Portsmouth to go on display at the Tate Gallery in London

The pictures – The Disembarkation of Louis-Philippe at the Royal Clarence Yard, Gosport, 8 October 1844 and Spithead: Two Captured Danish Ships Entering Portsmouth Harbour – will be featured in Turner’s Modern World.

The exhibition of 160 works aims to ‘reveal how Britain’s greatest landscape painter found new ways to capture the momentous events of his day, from technology’s impact on the natural world to the dizzying effects of modernisation on society’.

The Disembarkation of Louis-Philippe was originally thought to be a picture of Venice, and until 2003 was called Procession of Boats with Distant Smoke, Venice – until an art historian identified it as in fact the arrival of the French King in England, and the work was renamed.

The King came to England on a steamer in 1844 to keep up his good relationship with Queen Victoria, who herself was a regular visitor to Gosport en route to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

Victoria is said to have arranged a large-scale welcome for him, with gun salutes and big crowds at the quayside. The Illustrated London News reported that ‘the whole population thronged the beach’, watching as with every ‘moment this scene increased with interest’. Other reporters noted the presence of troops, whose lines stretched ‘from the royal dockyard to the railroad terminus’.

Turner’s Modern World also features The Fighting Temeraire, the depiction of the Royal Navy ship that fought at Trafalgar being towed up the Thames to be broken up. This was voted the nation’s favourite painting in 2005 and is on the back of the £20 note.

The exhibition runs from October 28 to March 7, 2021 and is open at Tate Britain from 10am to 6pm each day. To find out more call 020 7887 8888 or see tate.org.uk