A skillful reevaluation of the marginalized genre of marine painting, this study considers the production, reception, and institutions of marine imagery through the critical lens of the social history of eighteenth-century British art. The sea piece, long regarded as of little scholarly importance, is read in the light of politics, patronage, display culture, and the practices of maritime commerce and warfare. Sarah Monks examines the history of British marine art from the arrival in England of Willem van de Velde to the death of J.M.W. Turner - the period in which British art...