The Fighting Temeraire

1839

Oil on canvas, 90.7 × 121.6 cm. The National Gallery, London

A pale warship that fought at Trafalgar in 1805 is towed by a small dark steam tug to a shipbreaker's yard. The ship had been sold for scrap in 1838.

He most likely never saw the tow and worked from reports; the picture went to the Royal Academy the next year.
Look at the old ship, the palest shape in the picture, behind the dark tug, with the sunset blazing at right.
In a 2016 gallery talk, the National Gallery's Matthew Morgan points out that the water holds almost no blue and that the sunset paint is thick and heavily worked.
Critics then read it as a lament for the age of sail. Morgan (National Gallery) notes the painter had drawn steamboats with interest since 1815 and treats the meaning as open.
He kept it until his death and called it his darling.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (PD-Art)