H.M.Ship Ganges.- and Thetis off Rio de Janeiro

Vidal was a paymaster in the British Navy who made numerous visits to Brazil on HMS Ganges, the third in 1827-29. Ackermann published his Picturesque Illustrations of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo in 1820 and his popular images of life in the new republic reflected British interest in South America which had been rife since Popham and Beresford took Buenos Aires for the British in 1806. His Brazilian work includes a series of large panoramas of the bay of Rio de Janeiro executed between 1827 and 1834.