Naval shipping off Sheerness, with an Admiralty yacht of the white squadron, a frigate and a third-rate entering the Medway

French-born Serres, who came to England in the late 1740s as the captive commander of a Spanish merchant ship, was one of the thirty-six founding members of the Royal Academy of Art in London. He was widely applauded in his day, and was honoured in 1791 with the title of Marine Painter-in-Ordinary to King George III. In 1777 Captain Hyde Parker wrote while on board the Invincible, 'Serres is the best painter I know...' In the same year he commissioned Serres to paint episodes from the American War of Independence (1775-82).