Aside from the Nelson Chequer pattern, were there any other attempts by Navies of the 18th and early 19th century to color their ships a certain color? I know that the Spanish behemoth Santisima Trinidad was colored red but that was the only Spanish ship to be colored so ( somehow in the Hornblower series every single Spanish ship is depicted red). This painting of a Portuguese 1st rate shows some light blue stripes on the hull (Is this accurate?). This painting shows a French 4th rate painted Royal white (however, the ship right next to it is not. What's the deal?). Maybe this is just a case of artists wanting to splash a bit more color into their paintings?
Just a little bit of background info on both the pictures:
The first painting was done by marine artist Geoff Hunt titled "Arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family in Brazil" and depicts the Principe Real, a first class 84 gun ship in the Portuguese Navy in the year 1808. Although there are shades of blue in the artists depiction of the ship, particularly its stern and hull, blue is not part of the ships colour scheme in the higher resolution images of this painting. The ship itself is painted either white on black or a standard yellow ochre "Nelson chequer" scheme, even though it's a Portuguese ship. In Hunts book "The Marine Art of Geoff Hunt" he says regarding the preparation for this painting: "No plan for the Principe Real was found in the course of researching this painting. Her appearance has been recreated by reference to contemporary sources, including a painting by a naval officer."
the second picture is of a 4th rate vessel from the late 17th century, maybe at the latest circa 1700. So there's a large gap in time between the two vessels and what was popular in way of painting a ship between the years 1690-1815, especially taking into account different navies and then individual captains. It's possible the French captains during the late 17th century would occasionally paint their vessel white, but even in the European navies of the late 18th, early 19th centuries, paint schemes for individual vessel varied greatly from captain to captain.
An interesting piece of info I read (I can't remember where, maybe someone out there knows where or who it's from) was that at the Battle of Trafalgar the Spanish ships of the Franco-Spanish fleet were not in any particular colour, one Spanish ship was noted as being painted entirely black, another white and red, and the Santisima Trinidad was, as you said, red and black.
Found it: "The Blackwall Frigates" by Basil Lubbock: "For instance, the Santissima Trinidada was painted a rich Crimson lake with four narrow white ribbons under her four tiers of guns...the Santa Anna (a Spanish ship) was black from her hammock nettings to her water-line...All shades of yellow were to be found on the hulls of the French and Spanish ships, and gun strakes were often red, so the British ships were unmistakable owing to their chequers."
TL;DR - No, other than the "Nelson chequer" used by the British Royal Navy, navies of the late 18th and early 19th centuries did not try with any determined effort to identify themselves with a particular colour scheme
