Captain John Borlase Warren (1753-1822)

A half-length portrait to the left, wearing a captain’s full-dress uniform and the star and ribbon of the Order of the Bath.

Warren originally intended to enter the church, but in a change of heart he joined the navy instead. Nonetheless he became a Member of Parliament for Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire, while still a midshipman. He served in the American War of Independence, and during the Revolutionary Wars in 1794 was commodore of a frigate squadron on the coast of France. He intercepted a French squadron and captured three out of four. In the same year, he took a French Royalist army to Quiberon Bay, landed them and picked up the survivors after they were defeated. In 1798, he foiled a French attempt on Ireland by capturing four of their ships. In 1802, he went as Ambassador Extraordinary to Russia. He was at sea again in 1806 when his squadron captured the French ships ‘Marengo’ and the ‘Belle Poule’. He was Commander-in-Chief on the North American Station between 1813–14. The Caird Archive at the National Maritime Museum holds a collection of his personal papers (see WAR in the Archive Catalogue).

This portrait was presented to Greenwich Hospital by the admiral’s widow in 1824 for display in the National Gallery of Naval Art (also known as the Naval Gallery). It was attributed to John Opie in the catalogues of the Naval Gallery, but a related print, published by James Fittler in October 1799, names Mark Oates as the artist (see PAG9416). Oates was a lieutenant in the marines on board the ‘Canada’ during Warren’s attack on the French off Donegal on 12 October 1798. He produced two prints of the action which, together with the portrait of Warren, were engraved by Fittler.

Fittler’s print shows Warren in a three-quarter-length, rather than half-length as here. If there was a three-quarter-length version of the painted portrait, its location is not currently known.

Two half-length portraits markedly similar to the present portrait in pose and likeness, but showing Warren at a later stage in his career in the uniform of a rear-admiral, survive in the Ulster Museum (BELUM.U115) and with the National Trust at Sudbury (NT 653173). Both are attributed to Opie.

The precise relationships between the various painted and printed versions of the portrait are not currently clear.