Phillip Medhurst

St Paul Shaking off the Viper. 1789. Oil on canvas. 7.62 metres high by 4.27 metres wide. West was commissioned to paint this altarpiece for the new chapel of Greenwich Hospital (now the Royal Naval Hospital), the subject-matter aiming to provide hope for the naval pensioners who were spending their last days in the hospital after a life of hardship and danger on the sea. Commissioned 1785, it was completed by 1789.