Francisco Lameyer

Two years later, prompted by a need to support his family and possibly inspired by the love for ships he felt while growing up in a major port, he joined the Spanish Navy as an administrative official.

[2] Although this prevented him from pursuing his artistic career, he continued to do work in his spare time; completing 125 drawings for Escenas Andaluzas by Serafín Estébanez Calderón (published in 1847).

This served as the inspiration for his best-known work, Assault of the Moors, depicting an 18th-century raid on the Jewish quarter of Tetuan.

While in Egypt, he acquired several antiquities, which he sold to the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, thus relieving him of some financial burdens.

He continued to live in Madrid, but made frequent trips to Paris; partly due to the political instability in Spain that resulted in the Third Carlist War.