The military elephant in the room

'Defeat of the floating batteries at Gibraltar', by John Singleton Copley, hangs in the Guildhall art gallery in London. Photo by Johnny Bugeja

4th November 2022

In the Guildhall in London hangs a wall-sized painting by John Singleton Copley depicting scenes from the Great Siege of Gibraltar in 1782. At three metres by nearly eight metres, it dominates the Guildhall art gallery with dramatic imagery of the British seeing off French and Spanish troops during the war of American independence. For...