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ARTHUR WILLIAM DEVIS (BRITISH, 1762-1822) Portrait study of Captain Sir Thomas Hardy for ‘The Death of Nelson’ ARTHUR WILLIAM DEVIS (BRITISH, 1762-1822) Portrait study of Captain Sir Thomas Hardy for ‘The Death of Nelson’ Signed ‘A. W. Devis’ and inscribed by the artist ‘Sketched on board the Victory’, the mount further titled in pencil beneath the drawing and inscribed at the top ‘The Sketch made on board the Victory for The Death of Nelson by Devis Captn. Hardy’ Pencil 6½ x 5in. (16.5 x 12.7cm.) Framed and glazed Christie’s London: Old Master & Early British Watercolours & Drawings, 8 December 2011, lot 365. After the Battle of Trafalgar, the enterprising publisher Josiah Boydell offered a prize of 500 guineas for the most affecting depiction of the death of Nelson. Responding to the challenge, and in hopes of paying off his creditors, the artist Arthur William Devis, then imprisoned for debt, secured his release and, probably on the offices of his patron and Nelson’s prize agent Alexander Davison, travelled to Spithead to join Victory on the ship’s return from the action. He stayed on board for three weeks sketching the cockpit (National Maritime Museum, ID: PAF4387) and the officers and men who had attended Nelson on his death bed. Remarkably, the artist was also invited to attend Nelson’s autopsy aboard the ship on 11 December, when he sketched the body and the musket ball which had killed the Admiral. On 21 December, with Victory now at the Nore and attended by all the officers including Hardy, the body was again removed from its casket to be dressed and transferred to the coffin made from the timber of the French flagship L’Orient which Captain Hallowell had presented Nelson after the Battle of the Nile. This allowed Devis a final opportunity to sketch the body before its final internment which not only informed his monumental, and now iconic, painting of ‘The Death of Nelson’ for Boydell (National Maritime Museum, ID: BHC2894) but also to complete a number of half-length posthumous portraits of Nelson in uniform (see Lot 8). In good condition.