Watson and the Shark

Brook Watson, a British customs official who had lost his leg to a shark attack in Havana harbour at age 14, commissioned Copley in 1778 to paint the moment of his rescue. The composition is a pyramid: the boy Watson naked in the water, the shark below, the sailors above. At the pyramid's apex — the highest point in the entire composition — Copley painted one of Watson's Black crewmates, holding a rope toward Watson. It is one of the earliest history paintings in Western art to place a Black man at the compositional top. Watson survived and later became Lord Mayor of London. Now at National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. @ngadc