After the Storm

Among Hayter’s rare excursions into non-portrait subjects, this 1833 marine scene at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore shows a storm’s aftermath. The painting demonstrates that Hayter’s ambitions extended beyond portraiture, though contemporary critics regarded his non-portrait work as secondary. Maritime subjects were popular in an era when Britain’s naval power was at its zenith and Turner was transforming the seascape genre. George Hayter was the preeminent British history and portrait painter of the early Victorian era, appointed Principal Painter in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1841.

The dramatic sky and turbulent sea show Hayter working outside his comfort zone, with broader, more expressive brushwork than his tightly controlled portraits. The atmospheric effects are handled with reasonable competence.