OBSERVATION: The Prisoner "Chimes of Big Ben" Ship Painting

Ever since The Prisoner first aired on television in 1967… FIFTY FOUR YEARS AGO… people have been arguing whether or not the main character, Number Six, was actually John Drake, aka Danger Man and/or the Secret Agent. 

Personally, I lean toward the opinion YES, Six is Drake… UNLESS the two characters were simply just that similar to Patrick McGoohan himself.

I am not into long, drawn out arguments on ANY topic, especially ones where there are only a handful of people who could ever settle things. There may not even be that many, since we no longer have McGoohan to ask. Does his wife Joan know? Probably, but I bet she won’t tell, either. Maybe some day his daughters will spill the beans.

I am rather new to the Prisoner world, and recently fell into the what-does-it-all-mean trap when I began to wonder why a massive copy of a painting depicting a sea battle was so prominently featured in the Prisoner episode “The Chimes of Big Ben”.

Six and Nadia have escaped the Village and are in an office Six "knows very well" in London, apparently that of Fotheringay, played by Richard Wattis, who was one of John Drake’s bosses in the first incarnation of Danger Man (... so why does Fotheringay leave Six alone with the colonel if it is his office and he is senior enough to know of Six's reappearance?). There are quite a few ship-related items on the shelves. Largest is a big print of a sea
battle. You can’t help but see the thing!

Now, Sir Francis Drake was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, naval officer, and politician. So was that artwork of a Drake sea battle? Hence a hint to Six being Drake?

Using various online reverse-search tools, I discovered that the original painting was painted in 1799 by Philip de Loutherbourg. It is called “The Battle of Camperdown” and does not depict Francis Drake, but a battle between Admiral Adam Duncan and Dutch ships. The painting measures 5x7 feet.

A black & white engraved print was made by James Fittler in 1801. It is this print that is depicted behind Number Six.

And so my theory that all of the office’s nautical doo-dads were a hat tip to “Drake” seems to be “blown out of the water”. Still… the prop people put an awful lot of ships and things on that set…

No doubt, Prisoner fans have already beat this dead horse senseless after FIVE DECADES…

Now.......... what's the deal with THIS painting??

Philip James De Loutherbourg, The Battle of Camperdown (1799)
Photo © Tate
CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported)
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/de-loutherbourg-the-battle-of-camperdown-t01451