Naval Intelligence; Greenwich Pensioners reading a copy of The Times

Henry James Pidding was best known by his contemporaries as a painter of humorous subjects taken from domestic life. He exhibited frequently at the Royal Academy between 1818 and 1855 and also at the British Institution. Greenwich Pensioners also seem to have provided the artist with a particularly popular theme; the Art Journal in its obituary for Pidding made particular mention of another painting by the artist featuring Greenwich pensioners, entitled The Blue Nile, then owned by the Duke of Bedford, as 'among the best of Mr. Pidding's works' (The Art Journal, 1864, p. 243).