Hand-coloured photographic print. In 1866 Beechey, who was the best marine painter of his day who had also had a previous and successful Naval career, exhibited a painting of the 'Burning of H.M.S. Bombay' at the Royal Academy (no. 34). This appears to be an early photograph of that oil over which he or someone else skilled has added colour either on oil, or with a varnish layer over some other form of tint, though the matter requires further investigation. Artists were starting to have photographs taken of their works by about 1870 though this one may be later; Beechey himself only died in 1895.

Apart from his image of the subject (the whereabouts of the original oil not yet being clear) two almost identical copies of it were made shortly afterwards by George Cochrane Kerr (c.1825-1907), though for reasons unknown. One is in the Museum (BHC3239) and the other in the Russell Cotes Art Gallery in Bournemouth. The Museum's, signed by Kerr and inscribed as 'after Beechey', may have been done largely from a photograph such as this.

HMS 'Bombay' was an 84-gun second-rate ship of the line, built (of teak) for the Royal Navy at Bombay Dockyard and launched on 17 February 1828. In 1861 it was fitted with auxiliary screw propulsion and in 1864 was on the South American station. On 14 December, while engaged in target practise near the Islas de Flores on the Montevideo (Uruguay) side of the of the River Plate estuary, a fire started on board of which the cause was never determined. It spread rapidly out of control through the well-ventilated ship, destroying it with the loss of 93 out of its crew of 619. [PvdM 8/21]