The Demolishing of Tangier, 1683

Anglo-Dutch School. Oil painting on canvas, 'The Demolishing of Tangier, 1683', Anglo-Dutch School, late seventeenth-century. A bird's-eye prospect depicting the English colony of Tangier, on the north African coast. The painting is thought to portray the deliberate destruction of the colony by English forces in 1683, prior to its abandonment and return to loacl rule in 1684. Rising smoke can be seen where canons blast the city's battlements. Local Moors watch the events from an elevated position in the foreground. As long as it has been in the collection at Dyrham, this work has been considered as a pendant to a painting of 'The Siege of La Rochelle, 1628' (inv. 453736). Dyrham, Gloucestershire (Accredited Museum)