In 1848 Armitage exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy when he showed two paintings, Henry VIII and Catherine Parr, and Trafalgar (also known as The Death of Nelson). He continued to send contributions most years until his death. These included Retribution (1858), Esther’s Banquet (1865) (also known as Festival of Esther), The Remorse of Judas (1866), Herod’s Birthday Feast (1868), A Deputation to Faraday (1871), Julian the Apostate (1875), Pygmalion’s Galatea (1878), Meeting of St. Francis and St. Dominic (1882), Faith (1884), The Siren (1888), and The late T.R. Armitage, M.D., the Friend of the Blind (1893). The Siren, by Edward Armitage, 1888, Leeds City Art Gallery Probably the best known of these is Armitage’s huge imperialistic painting, Retribution, in which he allegorized the suppression and punishment of the Indian Mutiny by Great Britain in 1857. This was painted after details of the massacre of British soldiers, women and children had been circulated by the press. The Illustrated London News of 1859 described Retribution thus: “Britannia, represented of colossal proportions, has seized the assassin tiger by the throat, and is about to plunge her sword into its heart … The melancholy results of the mutiny, which have spread mourning through so many homes, are typified in the figures of prostrate victims, with debris of books, etc., scattered around.”