Artworks by Napoleonic POWs

A few weeks ago when I posted that macabre 19th model guillotine made by a French POW eglantine_br asked:

"I read somewhere that the French POW's made more art than the English. I do not remember why-- but certainly cannot imagine the conditions I read of in the Bitche. etc, leading to art... although some people are driven to do art anywhere. Did anyone else read or hear this? Do any of you remember why?"

Fortress of Bitche

It wasn't something I'd considered at the time but it's certainly true that while artefects made by French POWs from the Napoleonic Wars frequently turn up at auction, artefacts made by British POWs are much rarer. Scrimshaw pieces do appear frequently but, as far as I'm aware, these tended to be made by serving seamen rather than POWs.

I've just started reading Napoleon and his British Captives by Michael Lewis. Mr Lewis has one of the most annoyingly convoluted and flowery writing styles I have come across for a while, but it's a fascinating book and probably the most comprehensive overview of the experiences of British POWs that I've come across. While discussing the allowance made to British seamen POWs (1 lb bread, one ration vegetables and salt, 7 1/2 centimes in cash daily, one knitted waistcoat and pantaloons, one waggoner's frock, one hat, one blanket and one palliasse for every two men, or 5 kgs straw per man, to be renewed every 15 days) Lewis makes the following observation:

"...Napoleon's 'generous' law ordained that, in suitable cases, the British captive might supplement his allowance by following his trade in the neighborhood in which he was incarcerated: but in fact he was usually imprisoned in areas where the local people were too poor to buy the prisoners' products. Often, too, where he was cheated of his pittance of pay, he had not the wherewithal to buy the materials for his pitiful little products: while, so far as one can see, quite as often as not the order was ignored altogether, and he was allowed neither to make anything in the depot nor to go out of it to work.

Lewis is referring specifically to trades here, but it's quite likely that the same restrictions applied to artistic endeavors.

I have no idea how these conditions compared to those of French POWs incarcerated in Britain but I recently got a hold of an account by Louis Garneray, French marine artist and privateer, of the eight years he spent confined on the Portsmouth prison hulks from 1806 - 1814, so it'll be interesting to read the other side of the story.