HMS 'Natal'<br>
Inscribed by the artist, 'Natal', lower right.  This 'Warrior'-class armoured cruiser of 13,550 tons was built  by Vickers Maxim at Barrow, launched on 30 September 1905 and completed on 5 March 1907. The class as a whole was rendered  obsolete by development of the heavier 'Invincible' class - the first  battle-cruisers - of which 'Invincible' was laid down in 1907. They remained useful, however, until proved inadequate by the demands of the First World War, and in 1911 'Natal' escorted  the liner 'Medina' to India when she was used as a royal yacht to take King George V and Queen Mary to India for the Delhi durbar. Late in the following year, 1912, she had the unusual task of taking home to New York the body of the US Ambassador to Britain, Whitelaw Reid, who had died in London on 15 December. From this duty she gained the naval nickname of 'the Sea Hearse', which proved all too true later. She was assigned to the Grand Fleet at the start of the First World War then was sent to Cromarty in January 1915 for refit and to operate with a squadron of other cruisers. On 30 December that year, at anchor in the Cromarty Firth, she was capsized and sunk by a massive explosion: 404 of her crew were killed, together with some women and children on board as holiday visitors, though around 400 of her complement were rescued from the water.  U-boat attack was immediately suspected but it was in fact an accidental magazine explosion. This reasonably accurate drawing shows her dressed overall and firing a salute with an awning rigged aft, so it is likely to be at the review of the Home Fleet off Cowes by HM King Edward VII on 3 August 1907.
<bdi><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:William_Lionel_Wyllie" class="extiw" title="w:en:William Lionel Wyllie"><span title="English painter of maritime themes (1851-1931)">William Lionel Wyllie</span></a>
</bdi>
probably 1907
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