Nineteen years painting the hall

Sir James Thornhill spent nineteen years planning and painting the hall. He was paid £1 for each square yard of wall and £3 for each square yard of ceiling, for a total of £6,685. A rough calculation puts this at about £345 to £346 per year, a substantial income by contemporary standards, while leaving him free to accept other work. The long timetable helps explain the density of detail and the carefully managed illusion of depth. The patronage also shows institutional patience: decades of labour went into a public statement about maritime power.