A print commemorating the British victory over the French fleet at the Battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794. The upper part of the print is an allegorical composition designed by the history painter Robert Smirke. Britannia and her lion sit beneath an oak tree on a rock with the sea behind them. A naval battle takes place in the distance, from which rises a plume of smoke. The winged figure of Fame descends towards Britannia with a laurel crown, holding a palm in her right hand. The branches of the oak tree are hung with the portraits of the flag officers of the British fleet at the Glorious First of June: Richard Howe, 1st Earl Howe; Thomas Pasley; Alan Gardner; Alexander Hood; Thomas Graves; Benjamin Caldwell; and George Bowyer. The lower part of the image takes the form of a fictive stone tablet, lettered at the top ‘Commemoration of the Victory of June 1st MDCCXCIV’ and inset with the portraits of the twenty-seven captains of the fleet. Top row, left-right: James Montagu; James Pigot; Thomas Mackenzie; Thomas Pringle; Roger Curtis; Henry Harvey; and William Parker. Second row, left-right: John Harvey; Anthony James Pye Molloy; John Bazeley; James Gambier; Lord Hugh Seymour; Charles Cotton; and Thomas Pakenham. Third row, left-right: Cuthbert Collingwood; Andrew Snape Douglas; John Thomas Duckworth; John Willett Payne; George Cranfield Berkeley; Albemarle Bertie; and William Domett. Bottom row, left-right: John Hutt; Henry Nicholls; George Blagdon Westcott; Isaac Schomberg; John Elphinstone and William Johnstone Hope. The captains’ portraits are labelled with their names. The engraving of this print was a collaborative effort: the figures were engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi, the landscape by John Landseer, the admirals’ portraits by Thomas Ryder and the captains’ portraits by James Stow. Smirke’s original design for this print dates from 1795. It was published by the print-publisher Robert Bowyer in 1802–3 as part of a set of four double-elephant-sized engravings, grouped under the title ‘Commemoration of the Four Great Naval Victories’. These four prints commemorated the major British naval victories of the 1790s: the Glorious First of June (1 June 1794), Cape St Vincent (14 February 1797), Camperdown (11 October 1797) and the Nile (1–3 August 1798). All four followed the same format, combining an allegorical composition by Smirke with portrait medallions of the flag officers and captains of the victorious fleets. For impressions of the other prints in the set, see: PAH668, PAI5461 and PAH5671. (Updated April 2019).