Ships in Paintings
For more than three thousand years, people have painted ships, drawn them, carved them in stone, and later photographed them. A ship was a fortune, a nation’s pride, a family’s living, and sometimes a grave. Many of these vessels are long gone: burnt, wrecked or broken up and the picture is what remains. The Temeraire lives on as Turner painted her, on her way to the breakers. The Royal James as Van de Velde painted her burning at Solebay, barely a year after her launch. The Endurance as Frank Hurley lit her in the Antarctic night of 1915, months before the ice crushed her.
This collection is about the ships inside the pictures. We have gathered 1,331 works: paintings, prints, drawings and photographs, from an Egyptian temple relief of the twelfth century BC to the stern of the Endurance, photographed on the floor of the Weddell Sea in 2022. For each one you will find the artist and, wherever the records allow, the date and where the original is kept; then what the ship brings to the picture, and the real ship behind it when there is one. Every fact comes from a museum, a maritime record or a published source, and each entry lists its sources.
Marea can build any of these ships as a scale model, with the maximum detail the scale permits, finished to be inspected. We can build her as the artist saw her: the same rig, the same sails set, the same colours. It isn’t a copy of a painting. It’s the ship, stepping out of it.
This database was put together by Ai Refloat™, Marea’s own artificial intelligence, from the records of museums, maritime archives and published sources. Ai Refloat is still young & like any teenager, it can be a little volatile and unpredictable at times, but above all, it is learning fast. So this list may well contain mistakes and we welcome the input of everyone who knows these paintings, photographs and ships better than we do: listening, correcting and learning is one of the many ways we work towards perfection in this craft.
When no free image of a work exists, we show instead the museum or the place where the original can be seen.
Have you spotted a mistake? Tell us which painting, photograph or ship, and we will amend it accordingly. Tell us here
The works
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Ships at the entrance to the port of Palermo by night Unnamed
Entrance to the Port of Palermo by Moonlight, 1769
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (ГЭ-1764)
Medium Oil on canvas
Signed 'J. Vernet f 1769' and shown at the Salon that year, this is one of Vernet's night pieces. On the left, people warm themselves at a fire beneath the tower of Palermo's harbour fortress; on the right the silhouettes of ships stand out against a sea lit by a moon hung almost at the centre of the sky. The painting passed through collections at Montreuil and Aix-en-Provence before Alexander I of Russia bought it in 1803, and it has a companion in the Hermitage, a view of the surroundings of Reggio in Calabria.
The vessels Unnamed ships, seen in silhouette at the entrance to the port of Palermo.
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Ships in a fictionalised seaport by moonlight Unnamed
A Seaport by Moonlight (La Nuit; un port de mer au clair de lune), 1771
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 8334)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted for Madame du Barry's pavilion at Louveciennes as one of four overdoors of the times of day, this is Vernet's night. Fishermen gather round a fire on the shore while others fish, and the moon dominates the sky, its pale light lying on the small waves and among the clouds. The whole picture turns on two lights, the burning orange of the fire on the right and the cold light of the night on the left. Shown at the Salon of 1773 and widely engraved, it was seized by the state at the Revolution from the Comte d'Artois.
The vessels The seaport is fictionalised and the vessels are unnamed.
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Fishing boat by moonlight off the Isle of Wight Unnamed
Fishermen at Sea, exhibited 1796
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London (T01585)
Medium Oil on canvas
This was long considered the first oil painting Turner showed at the Royal Academy, in 1796, when he had just turned twenty-one. A small fishing boat rides a rough sea by night off the Isle of Wight, its flickering lamp a warm spark against the cold light of the moon. The chalk formations beyond, long called the Needles, make the danger plain. It sets the fragility of human life against the sublime power of nature, and the frail boat carries the whole human part of it.
The vessels An unnamed small fishing boat worked at night off the Isle of Wight.
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Dutch boats in a gale Unnamed
Dutch Boats in a Gale ('The Bridgewater Sea Piece'), 1801
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it On loan to the National Gallery, London, from The Capricorn Foundation (L297)
Medium Oil on canvas
Francis Egerton, Duke of Bridgewater, the coal and canal magnate, owned a storm piece by Willem van de Velde the Younger and commissioned the young Turner to paint its pendant. Turner answered in reverse: his boats lean the other way, his clouds come in from the other side, his sea is far angrier, and two heavy Dutch boats seem about to collide as their crews fight to avoid each other. He was paid £250, the most he had yet received for an oil, and crowds clustered round it at the Royal Academy. It is the young painter measuring himself against the Dutch masters.
The vessels Unnamed Dutch sailing boats driven by a gale; they are not individual named vessels.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Ships bearing up for anchorage Unnamed
Ships Bearing up for Anchorage ('The Egremont Sea Piece'), exhibited 1802
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London, on display at Petworth House, West Sussex (T03868)
Medium Oil on canvas
Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802, the first exhibition after Turner was elected a full Academician, this was the first picture he showed signed J. M. W. Turner rather than William. Big ships bear up into the wind to come to anchor while smaller craft plunge across a heavy sea under a moving sky. The Earl of Egremont bought it, and it still hangs at Petworth House, his home, on loan from the Tate. It is the confident young master at full sail, showing he could command a whole anchorage.
The vessels Sailing ships of the period turning up into the wind to anchor in an open roadstead; the vessels are not individually identified.
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
English cross-Channel packet and French fishing boats Unnamed
Calais Pier, with French Poissards preparing for Sea: an English Packet arriving, 1803
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG472)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 15 July 1802, on his first trip abroad, Turner crossed from Dover to Calais in a packet of this kind and noted in his sketchbook that the landing had nearly swamped him. The next year he put that crossing on one of his largest and most complex sea pictures. The packet, laden with passengers under a British flag, comes in towards the pier while French fishing boats head out into the same rough sea and agitated women watch from the windswept pier. A single shaft of sun lights a white sail. Critics mocked the thick paint of the waves; Ruskin later saw in it the first signs of Turner's colossal power.
“Our landing at Calais. Nearly swampt.”
The vessels A cross-Channel packet of the kind Turner took from Dover to Calais, surrounded by small French fishing boats. The vessels are not individually named.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Small boats going to the aid of a foundering ship Unnamed
The Shipwreck, 1805
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London (N00476)
Medium Oil on canvas
Shown in Turner's own gallery in Queen Anne Street around 1805, The Shipwreck is an important example of the sublime in British painting. A larger ship founders in the background while small boats, crammed with survivors and rescuers, fight a mountainous sea in the foreground. It probably records the loss of the East Indiaman Earl of Abergavenny off Weymouth that February. What the boats bring to the picture is courage: small hulls holding a human line against the whole weight of the water.
The vessels The large vessel is unnamed; the painting has been linked to the Earl of Abergavenny, an East Indiaman that foundered off Weymouth, Dorset, on 4 February 1805. The rescuers are open fishing boats.
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Dutch fishing boats and distant warships Unnamed
Sun rising through Vapour: Fishermen cleaning and selling Fish, before 1807
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG479)
Medium Oil on canvas
Early morning: fishermen unload their catch from a boat beached high and dry on the shore while a pale sun has yet to burn off the haze, and large warships hang in it like ghosts. The sea is glassy, a mirror for the light. Turner learned these boats and figures from Cuyp and Van de Velde, and when he showed it at his own gallery in 1810 it was called Dutch Boats. He bought it back after its first owner died, and his will asked for it to hang in the National Gallery beside Claude, where it hangs today.
The vessels A fishing boat beached on the shore, with large warships lying offshore in the haze. None is an identified vessel.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Guardship at the Nore with fishing boats Unnamed
Sheerness as seen from the Nore, 1808
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Medium Oil on canvas
Looking from the Nore towards Sheerness, where the Thames meets the Medway, Turner sets a Royal Navy guardship in silhouette against the rising sun, while in the foreground a small sailing boat passes a group of fishermen. It was painted during the Napoleonic Wars, and the warship stands guard over the smaller craft. Turner showed it in his own gallery in Queen Anne Street in 1808, and The Examiner called it one of the finest sea pieces ever painted by a British artist.
“one of the finest sea-pieces ever painted by a British artist”
The vessels A Royal Navy guardship off Sheerness, a naval dockyard where the Thames meets the Medway; the ship is not named.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
The Saltash water ferry and Tamar boats Unnamed
Saltash with the Water Ferry, Cornwall, 1811
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (89.15.9)
Medium Oil on canvas
On his summer journey to western England in 1811 Turner stopped at Saltash, a historic Cornish market town across the Tamar from Devonport and Plymouth with a long-established ferry, and painted its daily commerce: boats, packhorses and people gathered along the muddy shore. Nothing heroic happens, which is the point. In 1852 Ruskin saw in it what the mind sees when it looks for poetry in humble actual life. The ferry and its boats carry that poetry.
“what the mind sees when it looks for poetry in humble actual life”
The vessels The Saltash ferry across the Tamar and the working boats around it; none is individually identified.
Sources The Met
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
A three-masted sailing ship in mist Unnamed
Sailing Ship (Segelschiff), c. 1815
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz (inv. 215)
Medium Oil on canvas
Here a ship is the whole subject. A three-master comes almost straight towards us out of a warm golden haze, her sails dark against the light, pennants streaming, the sea barely suggested beneath her. There is no shore and no figure, only the ship emerging from mist. It is less a record of a particular vessel than a portrait of a ship as an apparition, arriving from somewhere beyond the visible world.
The vessels An unnamed three-masted square-rigged ship under full sail.
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Boats on the shore facing Greifswald Unnamed
Greifswald in Moonlight (Greifswald im Mondschein), 1817
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.00387)
Medium Oil on canvas
From a rocky shore strung with fishing nets on upright stakes, the eye crosses still water to the moonlit towers of Greifswald, Friedrich's birthplace, painted in reverse. The museum points out a rowing boat approaching and two skiffs lying tilted on the beach, all lit by a full moon glimpsed through cloud. The nets make a fence between us and the town, which floats on the horizon like a dream: for Friedrich the medieval city stood for the yearning for Paradise. The humble boats are the only way across.
“The fishing nets act as a fence between the viewer and the city, which lies as a dreamscape on the horizon.”
The vessels Small unnamed boats of the shore: a rowing boat coming in and two skiffs drawn up on the beach beside fishing nets hung on stakes.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikipedia
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Three sailing ships at anchor off a flat shore Unnamed
Ships at Anchor (Schiffe auf Reede, Strandbild), c. 1817
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Medium Oil on canvas
Three ships ride at anchor off a low, marshy shore, their bare masts standing like crosses against a sky raked with long streaks of cloud. In the foreground stand dead stakes and a broken fence, and a pale light glows low in the sky between the ships. The stillness is almost total. The ships are neither arriving nor departing, and the picture holds them in that moment of rest.
The vessels Three unnamed square-rigged ships lying at anchor with their sails furled.
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Two white sailing boats on the Baltic Unnamed
Chalk Cliffs on Rügen (Kreidefelsen auf Rügen), c. 1818
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Kunst Museum Winterthur, Reinhart am Stadtgarten, Winterthur
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted after Friedrich's honeymoon on Rügen in the summer of 1818, the picture frames the sea between glaring white chalk cliffs and two leaning beeches, with three figures in town clothes gazing out in wonder. The thin man in the middle is usually read as the painter and the woman in red as his wife Caroline. Far out on the calm, sunlit water sail two tiny white boats; the further one comes from studies of sailing ships he drew on that honeymoon. Interpreters have seen in them the soul opening to eternal life. Small as they are, the boats give the vast view its direction and its longing.
The vessels Small sailing boats of the kind Friedrich sketched on Rügen in August 1818; the vessels are not identified.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (DE)
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
The Dort packet boat from Rotterdam Unnamed
Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed, 1818
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Paul Mellon Collection (B1977.14.77)
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner drew Dordrecht in mid-September 1817 and brought back this great calm, often called the finest example of the influence of Dutch marine painting on his work, and perhaps a riposte to the success of Callcott's Entrance to the Pool of London. The packet boat from Rotterdam lies becalmed in the harbour of Dordrecht, the old town behind. The Morning Chronicle hailed it at the Royal Academy in 1818, and Walter Fawkes bought it for 500 guineas and hung it at Farnley Hall. After the storms, this is Turner showing that stillness and light can carry a ship just as powerfully.
“one of the most magnificent pictures ever exhibited, and does honour to the age”
The vessels The packet boat that ran between Rotterdam and Dordrecht, shown becalmed; not an individually named vessel.
Sources britishart.yale.edu · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Drawing
A first-rate ship of the line taking in stores Unnamed
A First Rate Taking in Stores, 1818
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it The Higgins, Bedford
Medium Watercolour
Turner painted this watercolour in 1818 for his patron Walter Fawkes. A Royal Navy first-rate, a great ship of the line, is taking naval stores aboard, and her hull is bathed in sunlight against the darker shadows around it, so that she seems to rise out of the sea like a cliff. It shows a man-of-war not in battle but in the everyday business of the fleet, the quiet work of supply that kept a warship at sea. The Higgins in Bedford acquired it in 1953.
The vessels A Royal Navy first-rate ship of the line; the ship is not named.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Higgins, Bedford, where the original is kept. Photo: M J Richardson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Sailing boat carrying a young couple Unnamed
On the Sailing Boat (Auf dem Segler), c. 1818
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg (GE 9773)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1818 Friedrich married Caroline Bommer, and the couple travelled to his Baltic homeland near Greifswald. This picture followed: a couple seen from behind, hand in hand in the bow of a sailing boat, gliding over smooth water towards a dreamlike city rising in the haze. The bow, the rigging and the forward motion carry the whole meaning, the ship of life heading for the harbour of marriage. The Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia bought it in the artist's Dresden studio in 1820.
The vessels A gaff-rigged sailing boat seen only by its bow and rigging; not an identified vessel.
Sources Wikipedia (DE)
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Two-masted sailing ship at the mouth of the Ryck, Greifswald Unnamed
The Port of Greifswald (Greifswalder Hafen), c. 1818 to 1820
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (A II 356)
Medium Oil on canvas
Friedrich returns to Greifswald, his birthplace, at the point where the little river Ryck opens into the Greifswald Bodden. At the centre stands a two-masted ship, a kind of protagonist of the canvas, its yards forming the triangle and cross that recur in his work, while small boats move in a light wind and the towers of the town rise from the hazy horizon. The tall format and the warm evening light give most of the picture to the sky. Werner Hofmann read in Friedrich's harbour pictures associations of shelter, peace and the evening of life, and the resting ship holds all of them.
The vessels An unnamed two-masted sailing ship at the mouth of the Ryck; a drawing by Friedrich of 1818 shows a very similar ship placed at the centre.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikipedia
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Sailing ships off Rügen Unnamed
A Seascape: the Coast of Rügen seen in the Evening Light after a Stormy Day, 1818
Artist Johan Christian Dahl (1788 to 1857)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS6852)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dahl crossed the Baltic in early September 1818 and painted this seascape from memory in his Dresden studio that autumn, for the Danish Prince Christian Frederik, later King Christian VIII, who paid for it in February 1819. The storm has passed and the coast of Rügen lies in the red of evening while a sailing ship rides the Baltic. The picture later passed to Frederik VII, who gave it at once to Countess Danner. The ship carries the calm that follows a storm, the moment every sailor waits for.
The vessels A sailing ship on the Baltic off the coast of Rügen; not individually identified.
Image: Johan Christian Dahl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Dutch orange merchant aground on the bar Unnamed
Entrance of the Meuse: Orange-Merchant on the Bar, Going to Pieces; Brill Church bearing S. E. by S., Masensluys E. by S., 1819
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London (N00501)
Medium Oil on canvas
A Dutch merchantman carrying oranges has run aground on a sandbank at the mouth of the Meuse and, as the title says, is going to pieces, with Brielle church on the horizon. The title reads like a pilot's bearings, compass points and all, so long and winding that it has been said to read like three paintings at least. It is also a pun, for the orange of the cargo is the orange of the House of Orange then reigning over the Netherlands. Tragedy and wit share one sea.
The vessels A Dutch merchant ship carrying oranges, stranded on the bar at the entrance of the Meuse near Brielle and Maassluis; she is not otherwise identified.
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Elbe cargo barge with a small boat Unnamed
River Bank in Fog (Flussufer im Nebel), also called Elbe Ship in Early Morning Fog, c. 1821
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne
Medium Oil on canvas
A flowering meadow fills the foreground, painted as if Friedrich sat in the grass; beyond it an Elbe cargo barge with a small boat drifts downstream through morning mist, three men labouring aboard, no sail set. A critic at the Dresden Academy exhibition of 1822 complained the fog lay so heavily that the artist's famous name was the only ray of sun in it. Helmut Börsch-Supan read the barge as human life carried by the river towards its mouth and death, and the fog as the troubles of life dissolved by the sun. The small vessel becomes the whole meaning of the picture.
The vessels An unnamed Elbe cargo barge without sails, drifting downstream near Dresden and kept on course by a man at the rudder, with a small boat alongside.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikipedia
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
A partially dismasted felucca in a storm Unnamed
Joseph Vernet Tied to a Mast Studying the Effects of the Storm (Joseph Vernet attaché à un mât étudie les effets de la tempête), 1822
Artist Horace Vernet (1789 to 1863)
Where to see it Musée Calvet, Avignon
Medium Oil on canvas
Horace Vernet paints the family legend: his grandfather Joseph, sailing from Italy to begin the Ports of France commissioned by Louis XV, has himself lashed to the foremast of a partly dismasted felucca so that he can watch the storm, sketchbook in hand. The incident may never have happened, but the grandson made it the image of a painter who faced the sea to learn it. The canvas was a government commission first meant for Géricault, and at the Salon of 1822, after Vernet withdrew his other entries, it was the only picture of his on show.
The vessels The felucca was a small Mediterranean craft; here she is shown partly dismasted in a violent storm. The episode may be apocryphal.
Sources Wikipedia
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Two sailing ships coming in to anchor Unnamed
Moonrise over the Sea (Mondaufgang am Meer), 1822
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Medium Oil on canvas
A man in old German dress and two women sit on a great boulder on a dark stony shore and watch the full moon rise over the sea. Two sailing ships are coming in towards them, or already lie in the roads, the nearer one taking in her sails. The arriving ships give the quiet scene its pulse: the long wait on the shore, the promise of arrival. For Helmut Börsch-Supan the moon is a symbol of Christ and the approaching ships stand for lives drawing to their close. The banker Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener commissioned it with a pendant of a village at morning.
The vessels Two sailing ships painted as types rather than identifiable vessels.
Sources Wikipedia (DE)
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Elbe sailing boats seen from the painter's studio Unnamed
Woman at a Window (Frau am Fenster), 1822
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Medium Oil on canvas
A woman in a green dress, by contemporary account the painter's wife Caroline, leans at the window of Friedrich's bare Dresden studio at An der Elbe 26. Through the open lower casement we see the masts and rigging of two sailing boats and a row of tall poplars along the Elbe; the nearest mast runs on up into the panes above her head. Friedrich painted the boats and trees much closer to the window than they could really have been. In a room stripped of almost everything, the rigging carries the whole longing of the picture: the idea of departure, seen from a room one does not leave.
The vessels Two unnamed sailing boats on the Elbe below Friedrich's studio in Dresden.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikipedia
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
A small sailing boat lying among rocks on a moonlit shore Unnamed
Northern Sea in the Moonlight (Nordsee im Mondlicht), 1823 to 1824
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it National Gallery Prague (O 8669)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in the years around The Sea of Ice, this is a northern coast at its most silent. A break in heavy clouds lets the moon light a still sea, stacks of rock and a far line of cliffs, and in the foreground a small boat lies among the stones, her mast leaning. There is no figure. The little vessel is all that speaks of human life in a scene of rock, water and cloud, and its tilted mast gives the picture a quiet note of loss.
The vessels An unnamed small sailing boat lying on a rocky shore.
Sources Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Coal brigs on Brighton beach Unnamed
Brighton Beach, with Colliers, 1824
Artist John Constable (1776 to 1837)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (591-1888)
Medium Oil on paper
Constable first came to Brighton in 1824 for the sake of his wife's health and was little taken with the resort, whose fishing boat subjects he thought hackneyed. So he painted working ships instead: colliers on the beach near the head of the Chain Pier, dark against a bright summer evening sky. On the back he noted the receding tide, the wet beach and the very white and golden light, and he later sent the sketch to his friend John Fisher. The coal ships, dark and workaday, anchor the fresh, breezy light around them.
“Very lovely Evening - looking Eastward”
The vessels Colliers were coal ships; Constable's earlier pencil note on the sketch reads simply 'Colliers on the beach'. The vessels are not identified.
Sources V&A
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Sailing boats and harbour craft at Dieppe Unnamed
The Harbour of Dieppe (Changement de Domicile), exhibited 1825, dated 1826
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it The Frick Collection, New York (1914.1.122)
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner knew Dieppe from two visits but built this harbour in his London studio. Boats crowd the quays, sails hang in golden air, and hundreds of figures go about their business around a central core of sun reflected on the water, in the manner of Claude's great seaports. He left out the steamboats that already used the port. Critics thought such golden tones belonged to a southern climate, not the Channel, but that is its point: a working harbour transfigured by glow.
The vessels Fishing and coastal sailing craft of the Normandy port of Dieppe in the 1820s. The vessels are not individually named.
Sources collections.frick.org · frick.org
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Fishing boats on Brighton beach Unnamed
Chain Pier, Brighton, 1826 to 1827
Artist John Constable (1776 to 1837)
Where to see it Tate, London (N05957)
Medium Oil on canvas
This was the largest and most important work from Constable's visits to Brighton, where his wife went to recover her health, and one of his six-footers, shown at the Royal Academy in 1827. With a storm about to break, fishermen work on the beach beside a boat drawn up with her brown sail still set, while out on the rough sea sailing boats run past the new Chain Pier, opened in 1823. Behind rise the new hotels and residences of the resort. The boats give the fashionable scene its salt and its truth.
The vessels Brighton fishing boats, one drawn up on the beach and others sailing offshore; none is individually identified.
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Rhine packet boat arriving at Cologne Unnamed
Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet Boat: Evening, exhibited 1826
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it The Frick Collection, New York (Henry Clay Frick Bequest)
Medium Oil on canvas
Shown at the Royal Academy a year after his Dieppe, this is Cologne on the Rhine at evening, the tower and spire of Gross St Martin piercing the sky above walls, towers and the customs house. In the foreground everything seems suspended: labouring women in peasant dress, an abandoned fishing contraption, time standing still. Then the boats arrive, the packet of the title and a ferry carrying women tourists to the shore, about to break the spell. A critic of the day could not shut his eyes to its wonderful skill, lightness and brilliancy.
“it is impossible to shut our eyes to the wonderful skill, and to the lightness and brilliancy”
The vessels A Rhine packet boat and a passenger ferry; neither is individually named.
Sources frick.org
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Market boat on the Scheldt Unnamed
A Market Boat on the Scheldt, 1826
Artist Clarkson Stanfield (1793 to 1867)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (FA.189)
Medium Oil on panel
Stanfield joined a South Shields collier as a boy, was pressed into the Royal Navy and sailed to China in an East Indiaman before he made his name painting scenery at Drury Lane, and he never lost a sailor's eye. Here a rowing boat crowded with figures and goods crosses the Scheldt while larger vessels lie beyond. He signed and dated it on a barrel in the boat, C STANFIELD 1826, in the years when he was still best known for theatre scenery.
The vessels A rowing market boat carrying people and goods on the Scheldt, with larger boats behind; none is identified.
Image: Clarkson Stanfield, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Small sailing boat off an imaginary port Unnamed
Port Ruysdael, 1826 to 1827
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Paul Mellon Collection (B1977.14.80)
Medium Oil on canvas
There is no port called Ruysdael. Turner invented it as a tribute to the Dutch Golden Age painter Jacob van Ruisdael and showed the picture at the Royal Academy in 1827. A small sailing boat works across a stormy sea under heavy cloud, near a harbour wall. The boat is the whole drama of the picture: a single hull and sail against wind and water, painted as a conversation with the old masters of the sea. Turner returned to the idea in 1844 with Fishing Boats bringing a Disabled Ship into Port Ruysdael, now at Tate.
The vessels A generic small sailing boat of the kind painted by the seventeenth-century Dutch marine painters. The port is imaginary and no real vessel is intended.
Sources collections.britishart.yale.edu · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Royal Yacht Club racing yachts Unnamed
East Cowes Castle, the Seat of John Nash, Esq.; the Regatta Starting for their Moorings, 1827 to 1828
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (FA.210)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1827 Turner stayed with the architect John Nash at his neo Gothic castle at East Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, and watched the Royal Yacht Club races. This is one of two canvases he painted for Nash: sailing boats and rowing boats crowd the water, spectators line the shore, and the castle floats faintly in the distance. Ruskin called it one of the highest pieces of intellectual art existing. It is Turner painting leisure and elegance on the water, all light and movement.
“one of the highest pieces of intellectual art existing”
The vessels Racing yachts of the Royal Yacht Club, founded at Cowes in 1812, with attendant rowing boats; individual yachts are not identified.
Sources V&A
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
A full-rigged ship at anchor off Vækerø Unnamed
View from Vækerø near Christiania (Utsikt fra Vækerø nær Christiania), 1827
Artist Johan Christian Dahl (1788 to 1857)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1999.99.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Signed and dated 'Dahl Januar 1827', this is a Norwegian evening painted in winter. Dahl, who had left Bergen for the Copenhagen Academy in 1811 and learned from Ruisdael and Everdingen, looks across the fjord near Christiania under a heavy sky with the moon behind the clouds: rocks and a hut in the foreground, fishing nets hung to dry on a line of stakes, a couple standing by the water, and beyond them a full-rigged ship lying at anchor. The ship is the link between the quiet shore and the wide world beyond the fjord.
The vessels An unnamed three-masted, full-rigged ship lying at anchor off Vækerø near Christiania.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikidata
Image: Johan Christian Dahl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Fishing boats returning to harbour at dusk Unnamed
Ships in the Harbour at Evening (Schiffe im Hafen am Abend), 1828
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Galerie Neue Meister, Albertinum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Gal. Nr. 2645)
Medium Oil on canvas
Evening in a harbour: sailing boats come in from the open sea in a line that seems to go on for ever, while the dark water keeps the last light of the setting sun and a thin crescent moon hides behind veils of cloud in a blue violet sky. Friedrich painted it for the collector Maximilian Speck von Sternburg, whose name is lettered on a rowing boat drawn up in the foreground, once mistaken for the artist's signature. That little boat has reached the end of its voyage, a ship of life at rest. Yet the mood is calm, not despairing.
The vessels Probably fishing boats, as the fish traps behind them suggest, painted as types; the only name on a hull is the patron's, Maxn. v. Speck, on the rowing boat in front.
Sources skd-online-collection.skd.museum · Wikipedia (DE)
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
A fisherman's boat coming in to land Unnamed
Mother and Child by the Sea, 1830
Artist Johan Christian Dahl (1788 to 1857)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2007.164.2)
Medium Oil on canvas
A tiny picture, only 16 by 21 centimetres, and one of the tenderest in this collection. Writing to its first owner, Dahl explained that the figures on the shore were the wife and child of a fisherman on the approaching boat. The boat is the whole emotional charge: the waiting, the homecoming, the fear that it might not come. The subject may have touched Dahl deeply. His own father was a fisherman, and two of his children died in the year before he completed it.
“the wife and child of a fisherman on the approaching boat”
The vessels A small fishing boat returning to shore; not an identified vessel.
Image: Johan Christian Dahl; photo Derbrauni, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Steamer off Staffa Unnamed
Staffa, Fingal's Cave, 1831 to 1832
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Paul Mellon Collection (B1978.43.14)
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner visited Scotland in 1831, and back in his studio in Queen Anne Street he painted Staffa not as a study of the famous basalt cave but as weather: a small steamboat beats along below the cliffs, its smoke streaming back low across a dark sea, while the sun, close to the horizon, burns through the rain cloud. It was shown at the Royal Academy in 1832. The steamer is the only human thing in the picture, and it carries the romance of the sea by steam rather than sail.
The vessels An unnamed paddle steamer, the kind that carried visitors to Staffa; the vessel herself is not identified.
Sources britishart.yale.edu · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
City of Utrecht Named ship
Helvoetsluys: the City of Utrecht, 64, going to Sea, 1832
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, Tokyo
Medium Oil on canvas
A Dutch 64, the City of Utrecht, goes to sea off Hellevoetsluis. At the Royal Academy of 1832 the picture hung beside Constable's Opening of Waterloo Bridge, a canvas he had worked on for more than a decade, and on varnishing day the two painters had one of the most famous exchanges in British art. The warship sailed straight into the story of their rivalry. In 2019 the canvas came from Tokyo to hang beside Constable's once again at the Royal Academy.
The real ship Turner's title names her as the City of Utrecht, 64, a ship of the line of the Dutch navy, going to sea near Hellevoetsluis.
Sources fujibi.or.jp · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Wrecked sailing ship on the Norwegian coast Unnamed
Shipwreck on the Coast of Norway, 1832
Artist Johan Christian Dahl (1788 to 1857)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.01626)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dahl was the son of a modest fisherman in Bergen, and he made his career far from home in Dresden, where he worked up his larger pictures in the studio. Here, as the title says, a ship has been wrecked on the coast of Norway. Years earlier he had told his patron Prince Christian Frederik that above all he was representing nature in all its freedom and wildness. This picture is that credo turned to the sea: the wreck as the measure of the sea's power, and a homeland seen from afar.
“most of all I am representing nature in all its freedom and wildness”
The vessels An unnamed sailing vessel wrecked on the Norwegian coast; the painting does not record a specific wreck.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Johan Christian Dahl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Dutch boat carrying the painter Jan van Goyen Unnamed
Antwerp: Van Goyen Looking Out for a Subject, 1833
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it The Frick Collection, New York
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner imagines the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Jan van Goyen out in the harbour off Antwerp, sketching from a vessel as he looks for his next subject, with the cathedral far in the distance. It is a painter's tribute to a painter, shown at the Royal Academy in 1833 beside his Canaletti Painting, which paid the same compliment to Canaletto. The boat is a floating studio. It was once owned by the whaling magnate Elhanan Bicknell and came to the Frick Collection with Henry Clay Frick's bequest in 1919.
The vessels A Dutch vessel in the harbour off Antwerp; it is imagined rather than recorded.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Rotterdam ferry boat with a Dutch warship beyond Unnamed
Rotterdam Ferry-Boat, 1833
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
One of the Dutch themed seascapes Turner produced in the early 1830s, shown at the Royal Academy in 1833. A ferry boat crosses the water off Rotterdam while a warship of the Dutch navy stands in the background. The little ferry gives the picture its human scale; the warship its weight. At fifty-eight Turner was still answering the Dutch marine painters of the past. The picture has been in the National Gallery of Art in Washington since 1970.
The vessels A ferry boat off Rotterdam and a warship of the Dutch navy; neither is identified by name.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Fishing boats on the sands below St Michael's Mount Unnamed
St Michael's Mount, Cornwall, c. 1834
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (FA.209)
Medium Oil on canvas
The island and its medieval monastery rise dramatically behind, while in the foreground fisherfolk work among boats on the sands. Turner took the view from sketches of 1811 but raised the height of the Mount. At the Royal Academy of 1834 the Spectator found his painting unsubstantial and visionary beside Callcott's, and twenty years later Waagen admired its poetical charm. It was probably painted as a pair to Line Fishing, off Hastings. The beached boats and the busy shore anchor the visionary Mount to ordinary Cornish life.
“The bold, precipitous rock, and the manner in which it is lighted, give this picture a poetical charm”
The vessels Cornish fishing boats on the sands below St Michael's Mount; not individually identified.
Sources V&A
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Two xebecs and the frigate Syrène Named ship
Gale in the Roadstead of Algiers, 7 January 1831 (Coup de vent sur la rade d’Alger, 1831), 1835
Artist Théodore Gudin (1802 to 1880)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
Gudin sailed with the Algiers expedition of 1830 as one of its official painters, and this vast canvas, more than four metres wide, records an episode from the winter that followed. On 7 January 1831 French sailors in two xebecs, heading across the roadstead of Algiers for the frigate Syrène, were caught by a violent gale. One xebec fills the foreground, pitching in the waves, the faces and postures of the men at her stern full of alarm; behind, the second xebec and the frigate herself are in trouble too. It was shown at the Salon of 1835.
The real ship The xebecs were small vessels carrying French sailors across the roadstead of Algiers; the Syrène was a French frigate of the squadron there in January 1831.
Sources Wikipedia (FR)
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée national de la Marine, Paris, where the original is kept. Photo: Freepenguin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Tyne keels and collier ships Unnamed
Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, 1835
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington, Widener Collection (1942.9.86)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the Tyne between North and South Shields, keelmen work through the night loading coal onto their flat-bottomed keels, which carry it out to the bigger ships bound for London. Turner lights the scene with cool moonlight, warm torch fire and shimmering reflections, so that labour and industry become something close to wonder. Henry McConnel, a Manchester textile manufacturer, commissioned it as a companion to his Venice: The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore. A critic of the day complained it was neither night nor day, which is exactly the spell the picture casts.
The vessels Keels were small flat-bottomed boats that took coal across the Tyne to bigger ships, often bound for London.
Sources National Gallery of Art
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Hastings inshore fishing boats Unnamed
Line Fishing, off Hastings, c. 1835
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (FA.207)
Medium Oil on canvas
Inshore fishermen work a baited line in the Channel off Hastings. Turner had drawn the view in his second Hastings sketchbook in 1816 and made a watercolour of it in 1818; almost twenty years later he returned to it in oil for the Royal Academy of 1835, composing the foreground boats afresh and pushing the land further away. While reviewers that year dwelt on his Burning of the Houses of Parliament, the Spectator called this a beautiful marine piece. John Sheepshanks bought it and later gave it to the nation.
“a beautiful marine piece”
The vessels Inshore fishing boats working a baited line in the English Channel off Hastings; not individually identified.
Sources V&A
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Two sailing boats on a moonlit sea Unnamed
Seashore by Moonlight (Meeresufer im Mondschein), 1835 to 1836
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Medium Oil on canvas
On 26 June 1835 Friedrich suffered a stroke, and afterwards painting was hard for him; from then until 1839 he worked mostly in sepia and watercolour, yet in 1835 to 1836 he still produced this oil. Dark boulders fill the foreground, where two boats lie drawn up on the stones, a banded cloud presses down, and in the moonlight two small sailing boats stand out on the water, with a third far off. There is no figure on the shore to look at them for us. The boats are the last trace of human life in a picture made near the end of his own.
The vessels Small unnamed sailing boats offshore and two open boats drawn up among the rocks of the shore.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Five sailing ships off Utkiek near Greifswald Unnamed
The Stages of Life (Die Lebensstufen), c. 1835
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig
Medium Oil on canvas
On a stony shore at Utkiek, near his birthplace of Greifswald, Friedrich placed five figures: himself as the old man with his back to us, his nephew in a top hat, his daughters and his small son holding a Swedish pennant. Out on the evening water five vessels answer them, one for each. The big ship has begun to take in her sails, two smaller boats are still fully rigged close to shore, and two more fade almost transparent on the horizon. Whether the great ship is the old man coming home or leaving for good, the fleet turns a family outing into a meditation on the voyage of a life.
The vessels Baltic sailing ships and boats painted as symbols of the stages of life rather than as individual named vessels.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (DE)
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Boats on the water at Venice Unnamed
Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute, c. 1835
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (99.31)
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner made a slight pencil drawing of this view on his first visit to Venice in 1819, but the painting is really the fruit of his second, in 1833. He brought to it, as the Met says, his long experience as a marine painter and his brilliance as a watercolourist. Boats move on the water while the foundations of the palaces seem to dissolve into the lagoon in delicate reflections. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1835, it was widely acclaimed. The boats give the dream city its life and its rhythm.
“the foundations of the palaces of Venice merge into the waters of the lagoon by means of delicate reflections”
The vessels Venetian boats carrying goods and people through the city; none is individually identified.
Sources The Met
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Crowded fishing boat, hucksters' boat and a distant steamer Unnamed
Fishing Boats with Hucksters Bargaining for Fish, 1837 to 1838
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1922.4472)
Medium Oil on canvas
A crowded fishing boat rides high on rolling, stormy water while a smaller boat of hucksters, peddlers who bought fish at sea to sell in port, fights its way alongside to bargain. Behind them a steamship chugs past, a quiet sign of the new industrial age. Turner framed it in the Dutch manner of Van de Velde, low horizon and all, and then claimed it as his own by signing it on the little white flag flying at the fishing boat's masthead against a sliver of blue sky.
The vessels Working fishing boats and the small boats of hucksters, middlemen who met the fleet at sea to buy the catch; the steamer in the distance is unnamed.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
A sailing frigate off a mountain coast Unnamed
Frigate under Sail (Fregat pod parusom), 1838
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
An early Aivazovsky, painted in 1838, the year the twenty-one-year-old returned to Feodosia after graduating from the Academy in St Petersburg, to spend two years in his native Crimea. Nothing here yet of the storms that made him famous: a three-masted frigate lies under sail on a calm evening sea, the mountains pink in the distance, a crescent moon in the pale sky, and a few figures rest on the flat roof of a little building by the shore. It is a young painter's homecoming picture, and the ship is its quiet hero; the next year he would join the fleet's exercises off the Crimea.
The vessels An unnamed three-masted sailing frigate.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
HMS Temeraire Named ship
The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838, 1839
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG524)
Medium Oil on canvas
A veteran of Trafalgar, where she had defended Nelson's Victory, the Temeraire was sold for scrap in 1838 and towed up the Thames from Sheerness to Rotherhithe. Turner, who probably never saw the tow, turned that last passage into an elegy. He gave the stripped hull back her lower masts, painted her white and gold instead of her working black and yellow, and set a squat black tug before her, its funnel moved so that the smoke drifts back through her rigging. The sun goes down behind her in the east, where no sunset could fall. Turner called the picture his darling and would not lend it again.
“as grand a picture as ever figured on the walls of any academy, or came from the easel of any painter”
The real ship A 98-gun three-decker built from more than 5,000 oak trees, the Temeraire fought at Trafalgar in 1805 in defence of the Victory. In 1838, over forty years old, she was sold for £5,530 to the shipbreaker John Beatson and towed by two steam tugs from Sheerness to Rotherhithe, arriving on 6 September, to be broken up.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Sailing vessels in Larvik harbour Unnamed
Larvik by Moonlight (Larvik havn i måneskinn), 1839
Artist Johan Christian Dahl (1788 to 1857)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.00034)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dahl based it on a drawing made on a visit to Larvik in 1834, and painted it with a pendant for the Royal Palace in Christiania, but the newly founded National Gallery bought it instead. The little coastal town lies under the moon on a summer evening, the reflection laid across the still fjord, figures standing in silhouette against the silvery water. The museum stresses the difference from Friedrich: Dahl's figures carry no hidden symbolism, and neither the church spire nor the sailing vessels seem to convey any particular meaning. This is a portrait of a Norwegian coastal community on a peaceful evening, and the ships are simply at home.
“a down-to-earth depiction of a Norwegian coastal community on a peaceful evening”
The vessels Unnamed sailing vessels lying in the fjord at Larvik, a small Norwegian coastal town.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikidata
Image: Johan Christian Dahl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Steamboats warned off a shoal Unnamed
Rockets and Blue Lights (Close at Hand) to Warn Steamboats of Shoal Water, 1840
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts (1955.37)
Medium Oil on canvas
The title is almost a set of instructions: rockets and blue lights, fired close at hand, to warn steamboats off shoal water. Turner paints a storm raging over an English harbour town, the flares tearing up into the sky while figures on the shore watch the sea, hoping, as the Clark puts it, that their loved ones will come home. The steamers are barely more than shadows and smoke in the spray. The ship here is felt through the fear of those waiting for it.
The vessels Coastal paddle steamers of the 1830s and 1840s, for which signal rockets and blue lights were used to warn of shallows and hazards. The vessels are not named.
Sources clarkart.edu · Wikidata
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Ship carrying Sir David Wilkie home, 1841 Unnamed
Peace: Burial at Sea, exhibited 1842
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London (N00528)
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner's friend, the painter Sir David Wilkie, had travelled to the Holy Land for his biblical pictures and fell ill on the voyage home; he was buried at sea off Gibraltar in 1841. Turner made his memorial out of the ship. She lies still on a cool white sea, her sails black against the sky, while by the flare of torches the body is lowered into the water. It was shown in 1842 beside War, its pair, where fiery Napoleon in exile meets this calm, dignified death. A small seabird lifts off the water in the foreground.
“Turner's achievement is to take a moment of sadness and loss and convey an impression of it as something of extreme beauty”
The vessels The ship that carried Wilkie home from the Holy Land in 1841; he died on the voyage and was buried at sea off Gibraltar. The name of the vessel is not recorded.
Sources victorianweb.org · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Ariel (paddle steamer) Named ship
Snow Storm: Steam Boat off a Harbour's Mouth making Signals in Shallow Water, and going by the Lead, exhibited 1842
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London (N00530)
Medium Oil on canvas
Here the ship is almost swallowed. A paddle steamer, making signals and sounding her way through shallow water, sits at the eye of a vortex of snow, spray and smoke, and the picture asks us to feel the storm rather than read it. Turner said he had the sailors lash him to the mast for four hours so that he could observe it, a story some later writers doubt. One critic of 1842 saw only soapsuds and whitewash, and the jibe hurt him; Ruskin answered that it was one of the grandest statements of sea motion, mist and light ever put on canvas.
“I did not paint it to be understood, but I wished to show what such a scene was like”
The real ship An inscription on the painting says the author was in this storm on the night the Ariel left Harwich. A paddle steamer Ariel, formerly the Arrow built in 1821 to 1822, was acquired and renamed by the Admiralty in 1837 and served as the Dover packet until 1846.
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Sol di Venezia Named in the picture
The Sun of Venice going to Sea, 1843
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London (N00535, Turner Bequest 1856)
Medium Oil on canvas
A Venetian fishing boat heads out to sea from the city, her sails emblazoned with her name, Sol di Venezia, the Sun of Venice. A stream of splendid colour falls from the boat into a lagoon that reflects the morning sky, with the city and its crowded boats behind. Ruskin, who loved the picture, studied that water so closely that he declared no man had ever painted the surface of calm water but Turner. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1843, it came to the nation with the Turner Bequest.
“no man had ever painted the surface of calm water but Turner”
The vessels A Venetian fishing boat whose sails bear the name Sol di Venezia; the boat is otherwise unidentified.
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Van Tromp's Dutch warship Unnamed
Van Tromp, going about to please his Masters, Ships a Sea, getting a Good Wetting, 1844
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner's title tells the story. Van Tromp, dismissed from Dutch naval service in 1666 for failing to follow orders and reconciled with his superiors in 1673, brings his ship about in a heavy sea to please his masters. The ship strains against the waves and spray bursts over the bow, while a man in a white uniform on the foredeck waves with confidence, as if the drenching were a courtesy. The title reads like a joke told in a gale, and the picture sets human nerve against the violent power of the sea.
The vessels A seventeenth-century Dutch warship under Van Tromp; the painting does not identify a specific hull.
Sources Getty
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
A sailing boat and a steamer off Folkestone Unnamed
Seascape: Folkestone, c. 1845
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Oil on canvas
In a swirl of green, Turner sets two boats heading out to sea below the cliffs of Folkestone: one under sail, the other with a funnel. Old and new meet in a single breath of weather. He chose not to exhibit the picture, thinking it too experimental after similar works had been criticised. It later hung at Saltwood Castle, the home of Kenneth Clark, who considered it the finest painting in the world. Sold at Sotheby's in 1984, it was recorded by Guinness as the most expensive painting of a seascape.
The vessels Two unnamed boats of about 1845 off Folkestone: a sailing boat and a boat with a funnel.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Whaling ship and whaleboats Unnamed
Whalers, c. 1845
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (96.29)
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner was seventy when this appeared at the Royal Academy of 1845. He seems to have undertaken it for the collector Elhanan Bicknell, who had made his fortune in the whale-oil business, but the picture came back to him. A whaling ship stands as a pale ghost of sails in a haze of spray and light while her boats meet a whale. Viewers struggled to find the subject at all, and Thackeray joked that the smear of purple was in fact a whale that had just slapped half a dozen boats into perdition. It is the hunt dissolved into weather.
“That is not a smear of purple you see yonder, but a beautiful whale”
The vessels A sailing whaler of the kind that sent open whaleboats after whales, the trade that made Bicknell's fortune. Not an individual named ship.
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Ships moored at Larsens Plads, Copenhagen Unnamed
Copenhagen Harbour by Moonlight, 1846
Artist Johan Christian Dahl (1788 to 1857)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019.167.2)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Norwegian painter Dahl first painted this Copenhagen waterfront in 1816. It is Larsens Plads, a shipyard and lumberyard named after its founder, Lars Larsen. Thirty years later he painted it again on a canvas twice the size, leaving out incidental detail and heightening the atmosphere, so that ships and quay become a quiet harbour nocturne. He conceived it as the calm pendant to a far wilder picture, a Tyrolean landscape with a waterfall, and it remained unsold at his death.
The vessels Sailing ships lying at Larsens Plads, a shipyard and lumberyard on the Copenhagen waterfront. The vessels are not identified.
Sources The Met
Image: Johan Christian Dahl, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Dutch dogger Unnamed
A Dutch Dogger Carrying Away her Sprit (On the Dogger Bank), 1846
Artist Clarkson Stanfield (1793 to 1867)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (486-1882)
Medium Oil on canvas
Stanfield went to sea as a boy and spent years as a sailor before he painted theatre scenery, and it shows. A Dutch fishing boat on the Dogger Bank is caught in a storm; her sprit has snapped like a twig and one of the fishermen reaches to retrieve it, while huge seas bear down on the tiny craft. Many of his contemporaries thought him the best British marine painter of his time, and this, his masterpiece, was shown at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855.
“On the Dogger Bank, in the cold North Sea, Wearily day and night toil we”
The vessels A Dutch fishing boat of the kind called a dogger, working the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, one of the best fishing grounds but prone to sudden squalls.
Sources V&A
Image: Clarkson Stanfield, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Erebus (whaler) Named in the title
Hurrah! for the Whaler Erebus! Another Fish!, exhibited 1846
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London (N00546)
Medium Oil on canvas
One of four whaling pictures Turner made in the mid-1840s, when he was past seventy, in the hope that the collector Elhanan Bicknell, whose fortune came from whaling, would buy them; he was disappointed. The title is a whaleman's cry of triumph, naming the ship Erebus as her crew bring in another catch. Ship, boats and men almost dissolve into golden light and haze, the triumph of the title muffled in glowing weather. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1846, it came to the nation with the Turner Bequest.
The vessels A sailing whaler named Erebus in Turner's title; the vessel is not otherwise identified.
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Black Sea Fleet squadron and imperial yacht at Sevastopol Unnamed
The Russian Squadron on the Sebastopol Roads, 1846
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it State Russian Museum, St Petersburg (Zh 8237)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in the Crimea between January and May 1846, this is the Black Sea Fleet on parade. At the centre a yacht flies the imperial standard, the ships are drawn up before her in ceremonial order, and crowds on the shore greet the emperor. The Russian Museum believes this is the canvas Nicholas I commissioned, shown that summer at Feodosia as Sevastopol before Noon during the Imperial Visit. Among the ships is the flagship Twelve Apostles. Nothing here foretells the Crimean War, when these same ships were sunk at the harbour mouth to keep the enemy fleets out.
The vessels Ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, among them the flagship Twelve Apostles, launched in 1841. According to the Russian Museum they were scuttled at the entrance to Sevastopol bay in 1854 to keep the allied fleet out.
Sources rusmuseumvrm.ru · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
A small boat off the North Cape Unnamed
The North Cape by Moonlight, 1848
Artist Peder Balke (1804 to 1887)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019.167.4)
Medium Oil on canvas
Balke visited the North Cape only once, in 1832, yet it became a touchstone of his imagination for the rest of his life. Here the great cliff stands dark beneath a torn, moonlit sky, and in the moon's path a small boat carries three men across the dark water, while sailing boats lie by the rocks and a ship shows far off on the horizon. The boats give the scale and the loneliness of the Arctic coast. Balke's dark palette and expressive brushwork stand apart from the more restrained naturalism of his mentor J. C. Dahl.
The vessels Unnamed small boats of the northern Norwegian coast: an open boat with three men, sailing boats moored by the rocks and a distant ship.
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Wreckage of a sailing ship after a night storm Unnamed
The Ninth Wave, 1850
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it State Russian Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Aivazovsky's most celebrated picture shows the sea after a night storm. The ship is already gone; what remains is wreckage, to which a handful of survivors cling as a vast wave, the ninth wave of the old sailors' saying, rises over them. The debris forms a cross, and the painting is lit in warm tones rather than grey, so that a chance of survival seems real and hope outweighs terror. The vessel's absence is the drama: all of seafaring reduced to a spar and the will to hold on.
The vessels An unnamed sailing ship lost in a storm; only debris from the wreck survives in the picture. The ninth wave is an old sailing expression for a wave of great size that follows a series of growing waves.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
HMS Victory Named ship
HMS Victory towed into Gibraltar, c. 1852
Artist Clarkson Stanfield (1793 to 1867)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (681-1893)
Medium Oil on millboard
After Trafalgar the battered Victory, carrying Nelson's body, was towed into Gibraltar by HMS Neptune. Stanfield, who had been pressed into the Royal Navy as a youth and later sailed to China in an East Indiaman, painted the scene in the early 1850s. This oil sketch shows the Victory in full starboard view behind the Neptune, on a choppy sea under grey cloud, with men in rowing boats in the foreground and the Rock beyond. A large finished version followed in 1853. Here the great ship is not fighting but mourning, a flagship brought in as a hearse.
The real ship HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar in 1805, was towed into Gibraltar by HMS Neptune after the battle, carrying the admiral's body.
Image: Clarkson Stanfield, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
SS Austria Named ship
The Burning of the Steamer Austria (L'Incendie du steamer Austria), 1858
Artist Eugène Isabey (1803 to 1886)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux (Bx E 495), deposit of the Fonds national d'art contemporain (FNAC PFH-808)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 13 September 1858 the Austria, only a few months into her service between Hamburg and New York, caught fire when a red-hot chain used to fumigate the steerage with tar was dropped on deck. With the engine crew overcome, she could not be stopped, and 449 of the 542 people aboard died. Isabey painted the disaster the same year; another of his versions is in the Musée national de la Marine in Paris. The burning steamer, a symbol of modern confidence, becomes here a Romantic vision of catastrophe at sea.
The real ship Built by Caird and Company at Greenock and launched on 23 June 1857 for the Hamburg America Line, she entered the Hamburg to New York service on 1 May 1858. She burned in the North Atlantic on 13 September 1858; the French barque Maurice rescued 67 survivors and the Norwegian Catarina 22 more.
Image: Eugène Isabey; photo Tylwyth Eldar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Broken ship's mast on the ice Unnamed
The Icebergs (originally The North), 1861
Artist Frederic Edwin Church (1826 to 1900)
Where to see it Dallas Museum of Art (1979.28)
Medium Oil on canvas
Church sketched icebergs from a rowing boat off Newfoundland in 1859 and turned them into a vast canvas nearly three metres wide, first shown in New York in 1861 as The North. Some viewers found its empty world of ice unsettling, with no trace of human association. Before the London showing of 1863 he renamed it and painted in a ship's mast lying on the ice, a sense of scale and a concession to those who missed a story; English viewers, among them Jane Franklin and Francis McClintock at the preview, might now read it as a tribute to the lost Franklin expedition. His signature on the ice beside the mast may be seen to form a cross.
“The spectator is supposed to be standing on the ice, in a bay of the berg.”
The vessels The mast belongs to no identified vessel; it evokes the ships of Sir John Franklin's lost expedition to find the North-West Passage, whose fate McClintock uncovered and described in 1859.
Image: Frederic Edwin Church, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Two sailing ships off Point Judith by moonlight Unnamed
Point Judith, Rhode Island, 1867 to 1868
Artist Martin Johnson Heade (1819 to 1904)
Where to see it The Cleveland Museum of Art (1970.161)
Medium Oil on canvas
One of only a handful of night scenes Heade ever painted. Moonlight glimmers on land, sea and sky off Point Judith on the Rhode Island coast, and the darkness swallows detail so that, as the Cleveland Museum of Art puts it, mood matters more than place. At the left two sailing ships move quietly through the shadow, the only sign of human presence in a still, silvered world. They give the picture its scale and its loneliness.
“One of only a handful of nocturnal scenes painted by Heade, this evocative painting captures the effects of glimmering moonlight on land, sea, and sky.”
The vessels The vessels are two unidentified sailing ships off the Rhode Island shore.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Sailing ships off Gibraltar Unnamed
American Shipping off the Rock of Gibraltar, 1873
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Private collection (sold Christie's, London, 13 June 2007, lot 30)
Medium Oil on canvas
Aivazovsky, the painter of the Black Sea, here turns west to the gate of the Mediterranean. Sailing ships ride a calm sea beneath the Rock of Gibraltar, at the meeting point of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Signed and dated 1873, the picture shows his command of calm water and light as much as of storm, and his interest in the great seaways of the world beyond Russia. It was sold at Christie's in London in 2007 and remains in a private collection.
The vessels Sailing ships off Gibraltar which the title describes as American; not individually identified.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · wikiart.org
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Foundering sailing ship and her boat Unnamed
The Rainbow, 1873
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Medium Oil on canvas
A sailing ship is foundering off a rocky shore in a storm, masts still standing and sails still set, while her crew pull away in boats and the helmsman points the way. Through the spray a faint rainbow appears, promising rescue. Aivazovsky painted it in 1873, at fifty-six, as an answer to critics who called his improvised manner outdated, and chose restrained, finely worked tones instead of his usual saturated colour. The rainbow over the doomed ship is the whole thought of the picture: deliverance glimpsed at the moment of loss.
The vessels An unnamed sailing vessel wrecked off a rocky coast; the painting shows a type, not a recorded wreck.
Sources Wikipedia (RU)
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Vesta Named ship
The Battle of the Steamship Vesta with the Turkish Ironclad Fethi Bulend in the Black Sea on 11 July 1877
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 11 July 1877, early in the Russo-Turkish War, the Vesta, a merchant steamer of 1858 fitted out with mortars and light guns, met the Turkish armoured corvette Fethi Bulend off Küstendje and fought her for five hours. Her steering was shot away and twelve of her men were killed, yet it was the ironclad that broke off and ran. Aivazovsky painted the action the same year, the old master of sail now recording smoke, iron and steam. Admiral Arkas, reporting the battle, set it beside the famous feat of the brig Mercury.
The real ship Built in 1858 as a merchant steamer of the Russian Steam Navigation and Trading Company, Vesta was armed as a wartime cruiser in 1877 under Lieutenant Commander Nikolai Baranov. She was wrecked off Cape Tarkhankut in 1887 with the loss of her crew; the wreck was found in 2016.
Sources wikiart.org · Wikipedia (RU)
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Boat of shipwreck survivors Unnamed
The Wrath of the Seas, 1886
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Oil on canvas
A storm sea breaks against rocks vanishing into gloom, lightning strikes from behind heavy cloud, and moonlight catches its edges. In the left foreground a small boat carries people trying to survive a shipwreck: some row, and one man points towards the coast. Aivazovsky makes this little boat the human centre of an overwhelming scene. Without it the picture would be pure elemental fury; with it, it becomes a story of will and hope, the refusal to give in to the sea.
“His storm has a thrill, a perpetual beauty that strikes the spectator as he is thinking of a live real storm”
The vessels An unnamed boat carrying survivors of a wreck; the painting refers to no identified disaster.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Dvenadtsat Apostolov (Twelve Apostles) Named ship
The Ship Twelve Apostles (Korabl Dvenadtsat Apostolov), 1897
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Aivazovsky National Art Gallery, Feodosia
Medium Oil on canvas
Near the end of his life Aivazovsky painted a portrait of the Twelve Apostles, the 120-gun three-decker launched at Nikolaev in 1841 and counted among the finest sailing warships of the Russian navy. Their paths had crossed: in 1846 she was one of five ships that sailed from Sevastopol to Feodosia to honour his first ten years as a painter, and she appears on eight of his canvases. By 1897 she had lain for more than forty years on the bottom of Sevastopol roads, scuttled in 1855 to bar the harbour. The picture is an old marine painter's act of remembrance.
The real ship A 120-gun first-rate three-decker, lead ship of her class, launched at Nikolaev in 1841 for the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Used as a hospital ship during the defence of Sevastopol, she was scuttled in the roads in February 1855 to block the entrance to enemy ships.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (RU)
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
A Turkish warship blowing up Unnamed
Explosion of a Turkish Ship (Vzryv korablya), unfinished, 1900
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the last day of his life, in April 1900, the eighty-two-year-old Aivazovsky began a picture of a Turkish ship exploding, and it was left unfinished. A painter who had spent a lifetime on fleets, storms and burning ships ends with a single warship bursting apart, a tower of fire and dark smoke above her, against a blue mountain coast. In the foreground an empty boat lies on the dark water, the only other vessel in the scene. It is his last word on the sea he painted more than six thousand times.
The vessels An unnamed sailing ship of the line, identified in the title as Turkish; no specific ship or event is named.
Sources Wikipedia (RU)
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Turner and the Romantic sea · Painting
Steamship by moonlight Unnamed
Ship by Moonlight, undated
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1975.280.2)
Medium Oil on canvas
A small canvas, barely 16 by 24 centimetres, in which a steamship crosses a moonlit sea. The Met notes that Aivazovsky preferred sailing ships but sometimes turned to modern steamers like this one. Born in the Black Sea port of Feodosia into its long-established Armenian community, he painted the sea all his life, and in 1880 opened in his home town the third public art gallery in the Russian Empire.
“He preferred to depict sailing ships, but sometimes portrayed modern steamships like this one.”
The vessels An unnamed nineteenth-century steamship; not an identified vessel.
Sources The Met
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Industrial barges on the Seine, Paris Unnamed
View from the Quai d'Orsay (Vue prise du quai d'Orsay), 1854
Artist Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819 to 1891)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2001.652)
Medium Oil on canvas, mounted on wood
Jongkind stands on the left bank with the Tuileries and the Louvre on one side and the Palais d'Orsay on the other, yet what fills his foreground are working barges and a crane. The Met sees in them the appeal of the Paris working waterfront to a Dutch painter who had sketched along the Seine since 1849. A loaded barge lies against the quay with smaller boats beside it, bringing the weight of trade into a view of palaces. He worked the sketches up into this oil in the studio and showed it at the Exposition Universelle of 1855.
The vessels Industrial barges and rowing boats on the working Paris waterfront of the Seine; not individual named vessels.
Image: Johan Barthold Jongkind, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Print
Thames barge and lighters at Black Lion Wharf Unnamed
Black Lion Wharf, 1859
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (17.3.35)
Medium Etching
When he moved to London in 1859, Whistler lodged near the Thames in the docklands and began to etch the river. Here the boat in the foreground is drawn broadly while the warehouses beyond are sharp, an effect borrowed from photographs, with cropped forms and flat zones recalling the Japanese prints he had begun to collect. The working boat and the wharf are the London he chose, the river of trade rather than monuments. Published in the Thames Set in 1871, the print also appears on the wall behind his mother in his most famous portrait.
The vessels A Thames working boat moored at Black Lion Wharf among the riverside warehouses of the London docks; not a named vessel.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Ship icebound in the frozen Thames Unnamed
The Thames in Ice (The Twenty-fifth of December, 1860, on the Thames)
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington (F1901.107a-b)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the winter of 1860 the Thames had been frozen for weeks, and at Christmas, according to the Pennells, Whistler painted it in three days from an inn at Cherry Gardens. It may be the picture of the Thames his mother called unfinished, turned down by the Royal Academy in 1861. By 1862 it was complete, and it was shown at the Academy as The Twenty-fifth of December, 1860, on the Thames. The ship moored in the ice gives the frozen river its meaning: a working port brought to a standstill, masts and rigging dark against a cold sky, men aloft in her shrouds.
The vessels A square-rigged sailing ship moored in the frozen Thames at Christmas 1860, with other shipping behind; not a named vessel.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Shipping in the Pool of London off Wapping Unnamed
Wapping, 1860 to 1864
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1982.76.8)
Medium Oil on canvas
Whistler began this riverside picture in 1860, working in secret down at Rotherhithe, lost months to rheumatic fever in 1861, and showed it at the Royal Academy in 1864 as Wapping. He told Fantin-Latour it showed three people on a balcony over the Thames, and a girl who was damned difficult to paint. Beyond them, he wrote, lay a row of large boats, one unloading coal, the mast and yellow sail of a lighter and the bowsprit of another ship whose ropes cross the whole picture. The ships make it the Thames of work and trade, seen from a riverside balcony.
“a girl who is damned difficult to paint”
The vessels Large sailing ships, a collier unloading coal and lighters on the Thames, as Whistler described them to Fantin-Latour; a visitor in 1863 saw the river in the picture as one jam of vessels. The ships are not named.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk · National Gallery of Art
Harbours and light · Print
Daubigny's floating studio Named ship
The Boat Studio, from The Boat Trip (Le Bateau atelier, from Voyage en bateau), 1861
Artist Charles-François Daubigny (1817 to 1878)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1927.2633a)
Medium Etching on ivory laid paper
Before Monet had his studio boat, Daubigny had his. To paint the river landscapes that suited his temperament, the Art Institute explains, he built a floating studio that could be moved to the best points of view and to catch the changing effects of natural light. His etched series The Boat Trip records that life afloat, an early example of the open-air practice the Impressionists would embrace wholeheartedly, and Monet followed his example at Argenteuil. This modest boat, cabin and all, is an ancestor of a whole school of river painting.
The real ship Daubigny's floating studio boat, the Botin; Monet later fitted out his own studio boat on its example.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia · krollermuller.nl
Image: Charles-François Daubigny, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Thames sailing barges moored and under way off Battersea Unnamed
Battersea Reach, 1862 to 1863
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (2014.79.35)
Medium Oil on canvas
Whistler painted this from the window of his house in Lindsey Row, Chelsea, looking across the Thames to the factories and warehouses of the Battersea bank. Along the shore at right half a dozen sailing barges lie moored with red or black sails furled, while another barge and smaller boats move on the river, which is streaked grey and white with touches of pale blue. On the embankment a woman in white recalls his portraits of Joanna Hiffernan. Whistler listed it as an afternoon or evening effect, and the barges' furled sails give the grey river its warm notes.
“a most gorgeous bit of colour”
The vessels Thames sailing barges, half a dozen moored by the shore with red or black sails furled and another under way, below the factories and warehouses of the Battersea bank; none is identified.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk · National Gallery of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing vessels at the harbour mouth, Honfleur Unnamed
Entrance to the Port of Honfleur, 1863 to 1864
Artist Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819 to 1891)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1968.614)
Medium Oil on canvas
Jongkind and Boudin brought a new spirit to the painting of the coast, and the Art Institute recalls that Monet claimed it was Jongkind who educated his eye. This view of the harbour entrance at Honfleur shows why. Its content, palette and technique fed directly into Impressionism, and although Jongkind painted his final compositions in the studio, he worked to keep the freshness of the outdoor sketch. The vessels at the harbour mouth are the reason for the scene, working craft coming and going where the Seine meets the sea.
“educated his eye”
The vessels Working sailing craft at the entrance to the port of Honfleur on the Seine estuary; not individual named vessels.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Image: Johan Barthold Jongkind, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boat off La Pointe de la Hève Unnamed
La Pointe de la Hève, Sainte-Adresse, 1864
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6565)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet was in his early twenties when he painted this wintry beach near Le Havre, where he had spent his childhood. Three figures in a boat row towards us, wrapped up against the cold, smoke rises from a cottage on the cliff, and sailing boats race along the horizon, their dark sails against a glimmer of light. The National Gallery thinks it was a study for his Salon picture of 1865, now in Fort Worth, where he replaced the rowing boat with a cart and horses. The little boat is the heartbeat of an empty shore, painted with broad strokes that hint at the Impressionist to come.
“three figures in a boat rowing towards us”
The vessels A small rowing boat off the shingle beach of Sainte-Adresse, once a small fishing port, with sailing boats on the horizon; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery
Harbours and light · Painting
Side-wheel packet steamer in the Channel off Boulogne Unnamed
Sea View, Calm Weather (Vue de mer, temps calme), 1864
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1922.425)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in Paris from sketches made on a family holiday at Boulogne-sur-Mer, this is one of Manet's earliest paintings of the sea, a subject he would return to again and again. The brushwork is bold, almost calligraphic, yet the Art Institute points out that every vessel can still be identified by type. Right of centre a side-wheel packet steamer heads up the Channel, leaving the slower sailing boats in its wake. It is a small picture of an age in change, steam overtaking sail, caught in a few broad strokes.
“a side-wheel packet steamer heads up the English Channel, leaving slower sailing boats in its wake”
The vessels A side-wheel packet steamer and sailing boats in the English Channel off Boulogne, identified by type by the Art Institute; the vessels are not named.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Art Institute of Chicago, where the original is kept. Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boat on the beach at Trouville Unnamed
The Fishing Boat, 1865
Artist Gustave Courbet (1819 to 1877)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (99.11.3)
Medium Oil on canvas
Courbet spent the autumn of 1865 at Trouville with Whistler and boasted to his father that he had painted thirty-five pictures in a very short time. Many painters of the coast, Isabey, Jongkind, Boudin, had put boats into their beach scenes as incidents. Courbet did something plainer and bolder: he made a single fishing boat, rigged and loaded with its gear, the whole subject. The boat sits heavy and real on the sand, a portrait of a working object by the great realist. In 1899 it became the first Courbet to enter the Met.
“thirty-five paintings”
The vessels A fishing boat of the Trouville coast, rigged and filled with equipment; not an identified vessel.
Sources The Met
Image: Gustave Courbet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Neutral and Spanish warships and merchant ships in Valparaiso Bay Unnamed
Crepuscule in Flesh Colour and Green: Valparaiso, 1866
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (N05065)
Medium Oil on canvas
Whistler sailed for Chile in February 1866 and reached Valparaiso on 12 March, where a Spanish squadron was blockading the port and British, American and French ships lay as neutral onlookers. The Tate dates this canvas to the evening of 30 March, when the neutral fleets began to withdraw before the Spanish bombardment the next day. The ships sit in a pale green dusk under bars of flesh-coloured cloud, still and ghostly, the calm before the attack. Whistler later remembered how, when morning came, they sailed out to the open sea until the Spanish fleet alone remained.
“they sailed out into the open sea, until the Spanish fleet alone remained.”
The vessels Neutral British, American and French warships and merchant ships in Valparaiso Bay in March 1866, during the war between Spain and the South American alliance; the Spanish squadron bombarded the city on 31 March.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Small boats in a heavy Channel sea Unnamed
The Green Wave (La Vague verte), c. 1866 to 1867
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.111)
Medium Oil on canvas
Boats work a steep green sea under a high horizon, and the picture is all about their struggle against the water. When it was shown at the 1879 Impressionist exhibition a critic called it directly influenced by Manet, and the Met agrees: the handling and the high horizon echo Manet's paintings of the American warship Kearsarge, which Monet may have seen in Paris in 1865 and 1867. So this rough sea is also a young painter answering an older one, taking the Kearsarge's bold composition and giving it to the working boats of the Normandy coast.
“directly influenced by Manet”
The vessels Small sailing boats of the Normandy coast, where Monet painted in 1866 and 1867; not identified.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Ships at anchor in Valparaiso Bay by night Unnamed
Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso Bay, 1866 to 1874
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian, Washington (F1909.127a-b)
Medium Oil on canvas
Whistler began this view of Valparaiso during his stay in Chile from March to September 1866, when a Spanish squadron was blockading the port, but the Glasgow catalogue shows it was almost certainly finished in the 1870s. It was probably not a nocturne at first; it became one as he reworked it, and he may still have been at it in July 1874. It was first shown in Brighton in 1875 as a Nocturne in blue and silver. The ships at anchor turn into dark shapes in a blue night pricked with gold lights, a memory of a harbour at war softened by time into music.
“in its early state it was probably not a nocturne at all, but became one as it was reworked over subsequent years”
The vessels Ships at anchor in Valparaiso Bay, the main harbour of Chile, which in 1866 held a Spanish blockading squadron and neutral British, American and French fleets; the vessels are not named.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats at Sainte-Adresse Unnamed
The Beach at Sainte-Adresse (La Plage de Sainte-Adresse), 1867
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1933.439)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet grew up in this area and saw the railway turn a small fishing village into a resort. Here the working boats hold the foreground: dark-sailed fishing boats drifting offshore, others on the beach with groups of fishermen and their gear. Between the beached hulls sit two fashionable visitors, the man peering through a telescope, and that small contrast makes it a picture of modern life. Conservation research at Chicago found Monet first included more tourists and yachts, then painted them out to give the fishermen, the life he knew best, the stage.
The vessels Dark-sailed fishing boats of the Sainte-Adresse shore, some drifting offshore and others on the beach; by 1867 the railway was turning the village into a seaside resort.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Regatta yachts off Sainte-Adresse Unnamed
Regatta at Sainte-Adresse (Les Régates à Sainte-Adresse), 1867
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.30.4)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1867 Monet wrote that he was painting the regattas of Le Havre, with figures on the beach and the outer harbour covered with small sails. This is that picture: a sunny high tide, well-dressed spectators on the shingle, and a scatter of white sails leaning into the breeze. The yachts are the pulse of the painting, bright triangles that pull the eye out across the water. The Met reads it as a pair with The Beach at Sainte-Adresse in Chicago, where fishing boats sit hauled up under a grey sky: leisure and labour on the same stretch of coast.
“Among the seascapes, I am doing the regattas of Le Havre with many figures on the beach and the outer harbor covered with small sails.”
The vessels Pleasure boats racing in a regatta off Sainte-Adresse, a well-to-do suburb of Le Havre; none is identified.
Sources The Met · Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boat moored on the Seine at Bennecourt Unnamed
On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt (Au bord de l'eau, Bennecourt), 1868
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1922.427)
Medium Oil on canvas
Camille Doncieux, Monet's future wife, sits on an island in the Seine looking across to the hamlet of Gloton, from which, the Art Institute suggests, she and Monet had rowed. The little green boat drawn up at her feet is the quiet witness of that crossing, and of a short stay in a cheap rural retreat that Émile Zola had recommended. It is the only painting to survive from that time. Traces of earlier paint suggest that Camille first held a child, presumably their baby Jean. The boat, the water and the reflected houses make it a picture of a young family's summer on the river.
The vessels A small rowing boat of the kind in which, the Art Institute presumes, Camille and Monet rowed across from Gloton to the island; not a named vessel.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Moored hire rowing boats at La Grenouillère Unnamed
Bathers at La Grenouillère (Bain à la Grenouillère), 1869
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6456)
Medium Oil on canvas
In front of us, the National Gallery notes, nine rowing boats lie moored in two rough lines. Most have two planks across them for seats and some have a pair of oars resting on them. Monet did not describe them in detail: thick lines of paint give their shapes, in greens and browns with dashes of orange and blue. The empty boats say everything about the place, a popular weekend retreat on the Seine waiting for its rowers, painted in the summer of 1869 in the quick manner that was an important step towards Impressionism.
“Most of the rowing boats have 2 planks across them as seats, and some have a pair of oars resting on them.”
The vessels Rowing boats of La Grenouillère, a resort on the Seine about 12 kilometres west of Paris that offered boating, fishing and swimming; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery · The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Two small boats at low tide, Étretat Unnamed
The Calm Sea (La Mer calme), 1869
Artist Gustave Courbet (1819 to 1877)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.566)
Medium Oil on canvas
At Étretat in August 1869 Courbet looked out over the Channel at low tide and painted almost nothing: an immense sky, a thin band of water, a strip of sand, and two small boats the sea has left behind. The Met notes how unusual this stillness is among his marine paintings of the period, which are dominated by crashing waves. The two boats are what make the emptiness readable. They give the eye a resting place and the picture its scale, small human things waiting for the tide under a sky that fills most of the canvas.
The vessels Two small boats left on the shore at Étretat by the receding tide; not identified.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Hired rowing boats at La Grenouillère Unnamed
La Grenouillère, 1869
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.112)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1869 Monet and Renoir set up their easels at La Grenouillère, a boating and bathing resort on the Seine not far from Paris, where all classes mingled. The rental rowing boats moored in the foreground anchor the picture, their hulls broken into quick strokes of light on moving water. Monet called the scene his dream, a painting of the baths for which he had made only some bad sketches. In its staccato dashes of blue, green and black, five years before the movement had a name, these little hire boats were already an Impressionist subject.
“I do have a dream, a painting, the baths of La Grenouillère, for which I have made some bad sketches”
The vessels Rental rowing boats at the Grenouillère resort on the Seine; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Hire boats at La Grenouillère Unnamed
La Grenouillère, 1869
Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 to 1919)
Where to see it Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1869 Renoir and Monet painted side by side at La Grenouillère, the floating restaurant and boat hire on the Seine at Croissy near Bougival. Renoir's view centres on the Camembert, a little island with a single tree linked by gangplanks to the restaurant and the island. The rowing boats in the foreground are the reason the place existed: the resort, reached by train from Paris, offered boating, fishing and swimming. Set beside Monet's versions, it shows two young painters discovering, in the same place, how to paint moving water.
The vessels Rowing boats of the boat hire at La Grenouillère, a resort on the Seine offering boating, fishing and swimming; the vessels are not named.
Sources Wikipedia · National Gallery
Image: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats moored at the quays of Lorient Unnamed
The Harbor at Lorient (Le Port de Lorient), 1869
Artist Berthe Morisot (1841 to 1895)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
In June 1869 Morisot arrived at Lorient for two months near her sister Edma, newly married to a naval officer attached to the port. She painted Edma seated on a parapet under a parasol above the outer harbour, with fishing boats moored at the quays in soft browns and greys. Back in Paris she gave the canvas to Édouard Manet, and his admiration marked a turning point: from then on he began to treat her as a talented artist and to consult her. The quiet boats and the long reach of water hold a sister's new life in a naval town.
The vessels Fishing boats and sailing vessels moored along the quays of Lorient, painted from the Quai de Rohan with the Tour de la Découverte in view; the vessels are not named.
Sources Wikipedia · National Gallery of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Boats on the Achterzaan at Zaandam Unnamed
Houses on the Achterzaan, 1871
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1975.1.196)
Medium Oil on canvas
On Daubigny's advice Monet went to Zaandam in 1871 and found a painter's paradise of windmills, water and boats. He wrote to Pissarro about the enchanting boats and friendly Dutchmen, and this view along the Achterzaan catches that delight in limpid water and hazy light. The Met notes the limited palette of greens and the light-dappled water of a small Dutch port. The river craft are part of what drew him there, a working waterway seen with the fresh eye of a visitor.
“There are the most amusing things everywhere: hundreds of windmills and enchanting boats, extremely friendly Dutchmen”
The vessels Boats on the Achterzaan at Zaandam, a river Monet found full of windmills and enchanting boats; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
A lighter or small barge moored on the Thames at night Unnamed
Nocturne: Blue and Silver, Chelsea, 1871
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (T01571)
Medium Oil on wood
Whistler's mother wrote that one summer afternoon in 1871 she was not strong enough to sit for her portrait, so he took her on the river; when they returned the Thames glowed an hour before sunset and he rushed to his easel, painting until the bright moon faced them and she urged him to make it a moonlight picture. Shown that year as Harmony in Blue-Green: Moonlight, it reduces the river to a few veils of colour, with the influence of Japanese art in its restricted palette and its butterfly signature set like a seal. At left a long, low lighter lies moored near the shore, a small light at her bow reflected in the water.
“oh Jemie dear it is yet light enough for you to see to make this a moonlight picture of the Thames.”
The vessels A long lighter or small barge, very low in the water, moored near the shore; the Battersea bank opposite Whistler's house was lined with chemical works, factories, wharves, timber yards and mills.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk · Wikipedia · Tate
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Thames tugboats at Westminster Unnamed
The Thames below Westminster (La Tamise et le Parlement), c. 1871
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6399)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet spent 1870 to 1871 in London and fell for its fog, which, he later said, gave the city its magnificent breadth. In this view of Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament, the tugboats on the river show a working Thames, part of what the National Gallery reads as a painting about modernity, alongside the new Embankment and St Thomas' Hospital. Dark little steamers move through broken strokes of water while men on a jetty dismantle scaffolding. It was his only view of Parliament on that first visit; almost three decades later he came back for a whole series.
“Without the fog, London would not be a beautiful city. It's the fog that gives it its magnificent breadth.”
The vessels Steam tugboats on the Thames at Westminster, which the National Gallery says underline a working river essential to the city's commercial life; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery
Harbours and light · Painting
Holiday rowing boats on the Seine Unnamed
The Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne (Le Pont de Villeneuve-la-Garenne), 1872
Artist Alfred Sisley (1839 to 1899)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (64.287)
Medium Oil on canvas
Sisley was drawn to new bridges, emblems of modernity, and here he shows the cast iron and stone suspension bridge of 1844 at a close, dramatic angle. What brings the scene to life, the Met says, are the holidaymakers on the Seine and along the bank. A man stands in a small boat by the great stone pier while other boats lie drawn up along the shore, and the water is broken into flat strokes of high-keyed colour. Against the engineering of the bridge the little boats are loose, bright and human, the pleasure of a day on the river.
The vessels Small rowing boats of the holidaymakers the Met describes on the Seine at Villeneuve-la-Garenne; not individual named vessels.
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boats in the outer harbour of Le Havre Unnamed
Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant), 1872
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris (inv. 4014)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet painted the port of Le Havre quickly, from his hotel window on an autumn dawn in 1872, and a whole movement took its name from the result. The two small rowing boats in the foreground are the only dark, solid things in the picture: silhouettes set against a hazy outer harbour of cranes, smokestacks and masts. They give the red sun something to rise over and the grey water a sense of scale and movement. Asked for a catalogue title in 1874, Monet said the canvas could hardly pass for a view of Le Havre and called it Impression, and the critic Louis Leroy seized on the word.
“Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.”
The vessels Two small rowing boats in the foreground, with fishing boats in the middle ground and tall-masted sailing ships, steamship funnels and cranes in the outer harbour of Le Havre behind; none is identified.
Sources marmottan.fr · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Barge drifting under Old Battersea Bridge Unnamed
Nocturne: Blue and Gold, Old Battersea Bridge, c. 1872 to 1875
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (N01959)
Medium Oil on canvas
Moonlight lies on the Thames, the dark pier and parapet of old Battersea Bridge cut across the scene, and a barge drifts from beneath it into water starred with golden lights from the houses on the banks. So a critic described the picture in 1876. The barge with its lone standing figure is the only moving thing in a world reduced to blue and gold, a small human presence under the great timber structure. The Albert Bridge glimmers lit behind, so Whistler probably finished the picture after it opened in August 1873. It is the Thames turned into music.
The vessels A Thames barge drifting on the tide under Old Battersea Bridge, as the 1876 description in the Whistler catalogue puts it; not a named vessel.
Sources whistlerpaintings.gla.ac.uk · Tate
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Shipping at anchor in Southampton Water Unnamed
Nocturne: Blue and Gold, Southampton Water, 1872
Artist James McNeill Whistler (1834 to 1903)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1900.52)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the early 1870s Whistler took a radical step towards abstraction with his Nocturnes, pictures that hold the stillness of evening and call on the language of music. In this one, an inlet of the Channel near Southampton, the subject is swallowed by the approaching night. Large ships appear only as ghostly shapes, and the only brightness comes from the reflections of lights and the broken orb of the moon. The ships are there to be almost lost: dark forms that give the harmony of blue and gold its weight and its hush.
“Large shipping vessels appear as ghostly shapes, reduced to shadowy forms by the deepening twilight”
The vessels Large shipping vessels in Southampton Water, an inlet of the English Channel, as the Art Institute describes them; not individual named ships.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Image: James McNeill Whistler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Racing sailing boats at Argenteuil Unnamed
Regattas at Argenteuil (Régates à Argenteuil), c. 1872
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 2778)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet lived at Argenteuil from December 1871 to 1878, and about half of the roughly 170 canvases he painted there show the banks of the Seine. There the river widens into a basin, the broadest stretch of water in the region, and racing boats drew competitors and Sunday crowds from Paris by train. In this canvas the sails and their reflections are broken into the fragmented stroke that would define Impressionism two years before the movement was named. Caillebotte owned it and bequeathed it to the nation. The boats are the reason the picture exists, shapes that shimmer twice, in the air and in the river.
“It's appalling, this light that drifts off and takes the colour with it.”
The vessels Small racing sailing boats on the Argenteuil basin of the Seine, a boating centre reached from Paris by train; not individual named vessels.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing fishing boats off Berck Unnamed
Boats at Berck-sur-Mer, 1873
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1940.534)
Medium Oil on fabric
At sixteen, having failed the entrance examination for the naval academy, Manet went to sea as an apprentice on a training ship and sailed as far as Rio de Janeiro. The sea held his imagination ever after. In 1873, staying at Berck near Boulogne, he rapidly sketched the sails of countless boats dancing in the wind on blue-green waves flecked with white. Cleveland notes the slight curve he gave the horizon, which makes a small canvas feel like infinite space. The boats are pure movement here, sails caught in the act of leaning.
“he rapidly sketched the sails of the countless ships that dance in the wind on blue-green waves highlighted with white”
The vessels Small sailing boats off Berck on the Channel coast, as Cleveland describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing vessels in the inner harbour of Le Havre Unnamed
The Museum at Le Havre, 1873
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6527)
Medium Oil on canvas
On a trip home from Argenteuil, Monet stood on the inner harbour wall of Le Havre and faced the museum of fine arts, a building of 1845 destroyed in the Second World War. The boats almost hide it. Their oversize sails are hastily brushed abstract shapes set against the arched windows, and their reflections break up on rippling water, in greyish blues and browns warmed with touches of orange. Monet left out the ground under his feet, so we seem to float among the boats. The Italian painter Giuseppe De Nittis, who exhibited alongside Monet with the Impressionists, bought it.
“the sails that almost obscure the architecture are hastily brushed in”
The vessels Sailing boats moored in the inner harbour of Le Havre, then France's most important transatlantic port, as the National Gallery notes; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Claude Monet; photo Carlomartini86, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Pleasure sailing boat at Argenteuil Unnamed
Boating (En bateau), 1874
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.115)
Medium Oil on canvas
Manet spent the summer of 1874 at Gennevilliers, crossing the Seine to paint with Monet and Renoir at Argenteuil, and here he climbs aboard. We are in the boat itself, with a sailor in white at the tiller, perhaps his brother-in-law Rodolphe Leenhoff, and a woman in a veiled hat, the gunwale and the sail cutting the canvas into bold diagonals. The Met notes how Manet borrowed the broad planes of Japanese prints. There is no shore and no horizon, only blue water, so the boat becomes the whole world of the picture. Mary Cassatt called it the last word in painting.
“the last word in painting”
The vessels A small pleasure sailing boat on the Seine at Argenteuil; not an identified vessel.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Pleasure sailing boats moored at Argenteuil Unnamed
The Bridge at Argenteuil (Le Pont d'Argenteuil), 1874
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1983.1.24)
Medium Oil on canvas
The National Gallery of Art describes what happens as you walk towards this picture. From ten feet or so away the strokes blend into a convincing view of the Seine and the pleasure boats that drew tourists to Argenteuil. Close up, each dab stays separate and the scene dissolves into a mosaic of brilliant, unblended blue, red and other colours. The moored boat by the bridge, its masts bare, is the centre of that effect: a solid object from a distance, pure paint up close.
“the pleasure boats that drew tourists to Argenteuil”
The vessels Pleasure sailing boats on the Seine at Argenteuil, the kind the National Gallery of Art says drew tourists to the town; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Monet's studio boat Unnamed
Claude Monet Painting in his Studio (Claude Monet peignant dans son atelier), 1874
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Neue Pinakothek, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich
Medium Oil on canvas
During a summer spent with Monet at Argenteuil in 1874, Manet painted his friend at work aboard his floating studio, with his wife beside him in the cabin. The boat, an old one Monet had bought around 1871 or 1872 to observe the light on the Seine, becomes a small stage for the new painting itself: easel, straw hat and white awning on the bright river. Simon Abrahams of Every Painter Paints Himself sees in the row of M shapes along the awning a play on the two painters' names. It is a picture of a friendship conducted on the water.
“That row of Ms decorating the awning is a clear reference to Manet in Monet.”
The vessels An old boat Monet acquired in the early 1870s and used as a floating studio to observe the light on the Seine; Daubigny also had a studio boat, called the Botin.
Sources Wikipedia · everypainterpaintshimself.com
Harbours and light · Painting
Racing rowing boats at Molesey Regatta Unnamed
Regatta at Molesey (Les Régates à Molesey), 1874
Artist Alfred Sisley (1839 to 1899)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 2787)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1874 the collector Jean-Baptiste Faure paid for Sisley to spend four months in England and went with him. Sisley settled at Hampton Court and painted the Molesey Regatta, founded only the year before, looking upstream from Molesey Boat Club with the new Island Hotel on Tagg's Island behind. In cloudier England his pictures became brighter and more festive. Flags stream overhead while a long line of racing boats pulls along the river, the Thames sport seen with a French painter's eye for light.
The vessels Racing rowing boats at the Molesey Regatta on the Thames, begun by an amateur sportsman in 1873; not individual named boats.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Monet's studio boat Unnamed
The Studio Boat (Le Bateau-atelier), 1874
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo (KM 111.222)
Medium Oil on canvas
From 1871 to 1878 Monet lived at Argenteuil, and following the example of Daubigny he had a boat built so he could paint the river and its light from the water itself. Here the boat is the subject, moored between two poles and quite still, with a figure just visible in the cabin, probably Monet. The river mirrors the boat, the trees and the sky together, and the Kröller-Müller reads it as an impression of calm on a summer day. It is a portrait of the tool that made so many of his river paintings possible, floating in the very light it was built to study.
The vessels Monet's floating studio at Argenteuil, a boat with a plank cabin modelled on Daubigny's studio boat; he acquired it in the early 1870s, and he painted it both at Argenteuil and later at Giverny.
Sources krollermuller.nl · Google Arts & Culture · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing ships and dinghies at the Quai des Chartrons, Bordeaux Unnamed
View of Bordeaux, from the Quai des Chartrons (Vue de Bordeaux, depuis le quai des Chartrons), 1874
Artist Eugène Boudin (1824 to 1898)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1986.73)
Medium Oil on fabric
Boudin first came to Bordeaux in 1873 as the guest of the collector Arthur Bourges, and between 1874 and 1876 he painted its harbour and docks. This view looks at the working quays, where goods were loaded and unloaded and sailors rowed out in small dinghies to the larger ships they served. The low horizon gives most of the canvas to sky, and the masts rise against it in verticals and diagonals. Cleveland notes the traces of earlier paint in the rigging of the small ship at the left, where Boudin shifted the lines as he worked. It was the year he was invited to exhibit with the future Impressionists.
The vessels Square-rigged sailing ships, barges and small dinghies at the working quays of Bordeaux, as Cleveland describes; not individual named vessels.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Sand dredgers' boats on the Seine at Port-Marly Unnamed
The Seine at Port-Marly, Piles of Sand (La Seine à Port-Marly, tas de sable), 1875
Artist Alfred Sisley (1839 to 1899)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1933.1177)
Medium Oil on canvas
Sisley lived at Marly-le-Roi from 1875 to 1878, and the Art Institute thinks this may be the most original of all his landscapes there. Instead of weekend leisure it shows the working week: men dredging sand from the Seine to make way for barge traffic, the sand heaped high on the bank. Their flat boats are the tools of that labour. At a time when his friends painted the river as a playground for boating and dining, Sisley painted it as a working road and the men who lived by it.
“workers dredging sand to facilitate barge traffic”
The vessels Flat river boats used by the men dredging sand from the Seine at Port-Marly to ease barge traffic, as the Art Institute describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Orange rowing skiff on the Seine at Chatou Unnamed
The Skiff (La Yole), 1875
Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 to 1919)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG6478)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the Seine, probably near Chatou, fashionably dressed women drift in a rowing boat, with a sailing boat beyond, a riverside villa and a steam train crossing a bridge. The National Gallery points to Renoir's daring colour: no black, no earth tones, bright unmixed paint straight from the tube, and above all an orange skiff laid against dark blue water, complementary colours that make each other blaze. The long hull gives the picture its horizontal structure, offset by the white sail and the reeds. The boat is the flame at the centre of a picture of summer heat and light.
“summer heat and light”
The vessels A skiff or small gig, as the National Gallery calls it, on a stretch of the Seine popular for recreational boating; not a named vessel.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
River barges on the Oise at Pontoise Unnamed
Barges at Pontoise (Péniches à Pontoise), 1876
Artist Camille Pissarro (1830 to 1903)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1979.135.16)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1876 Pissarro painted several views of the barges that carried goods along the Oise to the busy port of Pontoise, the town where he lived for years. This is the only one to bring the boats up close. They are laid in with bold strokes of orange and green, so freely that the figure on the prow of the left-hand barge is hard to make out. The barges are the working heart of the town's river, and twenty years later Pissarro would come back to the same theme in the harbours of Rouen and Paris.
The vessels Barges that carried goods along the Oise to the port of Pontoise; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Image: Camille Pissarro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Périssoires on the Yerres Unnamed
Skiffs (Périssoires sur l'Yerres), 1877
Artist Gustave Caillebotte (1848 to 1894)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1985.64.6)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1877 and 1878 Caillebotte painted swimmers, fishermen, rowers and canoeists at his family's estate on the little river Yerres. This canvas was shown at the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879 as Périssoires sur l'Yerres, flat-bottomed canoes on the Yerres. A paddler in a straw hat comes straight at us, his long double paddle flashing yellow, while two more canoes follow down the shaded green river. Caillebotte, who later designed his own yachts and won races, already paints these slender hulls with a sailor's eye, their rhythm repeated across the water.
The vessels Périssoires, the flat-bottomed canoes of the Yerres named in the title under which the painting was first exhibited; the boats are not named.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boat on the lake in the Bois de Boulogne Unnamed
Summer's Day, c. 1879
Artist Berthe Morisot (1841 to 1895)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London
Medium Oil on canvas
Probably the picture Morisot showed at the Impressionist exhibition of 1880 as The Lake in the Bois de Boulogne, this canvas puts two fashionable young women in a boat floating placidly on a lake. Morisot's brush is deliberately loose, to catch a moment as it passes, and the National Gallery points to the carriage glimpsed on the far shore. The boat is a small stage for modern leisure in the heart of Paris, holding its two sitters, professional models who appear in other Morisot pictures, in a haze of green, blue and white.
“two fashionable young women in a boat floating placidly on a lake”
The vessels A small boat on the lake in the Bois de Boulogne, the setting the National Gallery suggests for the picture; not a named vessel.
Sources National Gallery
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing boats in the harbour of Naples Unnamed
The Bay of Naples (La Baie de Naples), 1881
Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 to 1919)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (56.135.8)
Medium Oil on canvas
A corner of balcony at lower left shows where Renoir stood, above the harbour of Naples, with Vesuvius sending smoke into the sky. The southern Italian light inspired him to paint the view again at another time of day, in a second version now at the Clark. The harbour boats, their lateen yards slanting across the bright water, give life to a view the Met calls iconic, while carts and crowds move along the waterfront. In 1883 the sugar refiner James Duncan bought it, the first Impressionist picture acquired by a Scottish collector.
“the first Impressionist picture acquired by a Scottish collector”
The vessels Sailing boats and harbour craft in the Bay of Naples; the vessels are not named.
Sources The Met
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Rochefort's escape boat, with the collier P.C.E. on the horizon Unnamed
The Escape of Rochefort (L'Évasion de Rochefort), c. 1881
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1984 158)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1874 the journalist Henri Rochefort, imprisoned for his part in the Commune, escaped by sea from the penal colony of New Caledonia with his companions. Manet waited until the 1880 amnesty allowed Rochefort home before painting it, meaning it for the Salon of 1881 as a history painting of his own time. In this smaller of two versions Rochefort sits at the stern of a tiny dinghy bobbing through the waves, almost lost in an electric, phosphorescent sea, with the rescue ship on the horizon. The boat carries the whole drama: vulnerable, crowded, bound for freedom across a sea that fills the canvas.
“electric, phosphorescent sea”
The vessels The escapees were picked up off Nouméa in March 1874 by the P.C.E., a three-masted collier under Captain Law, and carried to Newcastle, New South Wales, and on to Sydney.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, where the original is kept. Photo: Gonzalezpascalphotos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boat on the beach at Scheveningen Unnamed
Beach at Scheveningen in Stormy Weather (Zeegezicht bij Scheveningen), 1882
Artist Vincent van Gogh (1853 to 1890)
Where to see it Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Medium Oil
In August 1882, only months after his first paintings, Van Gogh went out to Scheveningen in a storm. He told Theo the wind was so strong he could barely stay on his feet or see through the clouds of sand, and some of that sand is still caught in the paint. At that spot, he wrote, there was a fishing boat, the last in the row, and several dark figures. The boat is the fixed point in a picture of wild weather, with fishwives watching as men with horses and a cart prepare to haul it ashore. Stolen from the museum in 2002, the painting was recovered near Naples in 2016.
“At that spot there was a fishing-boat, the last in the row, and several dark figures.”
The vessels A fishing boat of the Scheveningen beach, brought ashore by men with horses and a cart pulling on a rope; not a named vessel.
Sources Wikipedia · Van Gogh Letters
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boat and caloges on the beach at Étretat Unnamed
Étretat, Rough Sea (Étretat, mer agitée), 1883
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon (B 647)
Medium Oil on canvas
In February 1883 Monet spent a winter stay at Étretat and painted some thirty canvases there; this one was framed from a hotel window. Nacreous waves, driven by a violent wind, run wild in rapid, vibrant loops against the cliff, and a curtain of rain streaks the distant sky. On the narrow strip of beach where the boats land, the fishermen's world holds firm: two men beside their boat, and three caloges. Without the boats this would be pure spectacle; with them it becomes the view of people who wait for the weather to let them work.
The vessels A fishing boat drawn up on the narrow landing beach at Étretat beside three caloges; not an identified vessel.
Sources mba-lyon.fr
Harbours and light · Painting
Rowing boat flying the tricolour, and sailing boats on the Seine Unnamed
Bathers at Asnières (Une baignade, Asnières), 1884
Artist Georges Seurat (1859 to 1891)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG3908)
Medium Oil on canvas
Working men and boys rest on the bank of the Seine in an industrial suburb, still as sculpture in hazy sunlight, with the factory chimneys of Clichy beyond. On the water the other Paris goes by: a bourgeois couple with parasol and top hat is ferried across the river in a boat bearing the French tricolour, rowed by an oarsman whom the National Gallery calls the only person in the picture who is working. Recreational sailing boats glide further off. The boats carry the painting's quiet social contrast. Seurat meant it for the Salon of 1884, which rejected it.
“the only person in the picture who is working”
The vessels A small boat ferrying passengers across the Seine and recreational sailing boats between Asnières and Courbevoie, as the National Gallery describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Skagen fishing boats setting out Unnamed
Men of Skagen Setting Out for Night Fishing: Late Summer Evening (Skagboere går ud på nattefiskeri. Sildig sommeraften), 1884
Artist Peder Severin Krøyer (1851 to 1909)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1977 204)
Medium Oil on canvas
Krøyer paints fishermen of Skagen putting out for a night's fishing at the end of a late-summer day. Two open boats lie in the calm shallows, men aboard hauling up the pale sails, while the moon hangs in a still, silvery sky and a distant sail shows on the horizon. On the wet sand in the foreground lie rays. The boats carry the day into the night: it is the painter's evening light and the fishermen's working hour at once.
The vessels Open wooden sailing boats of the Skagen fishermen setting out for night fishing; none is identified.
Sources Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Peder Severin Krøyer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Beached fishing boats and caloges at Étretat Unnamed
Boats on the Beach at Étretat (Bateaux sur la plage à Étretat), 1885
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1947.95)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bad autumn weather kept Monet indoors at the Hôtel Blanquet, and on 24 November 1885 he told Alice Hoschedé that he had worked in his room on his caloges, retired fishing boats covered with tarred planks and used for storage, in the rain. This is that picture. The brightly coloured hulls of the beached craft give scale to the whole scene, and the wet surfaces are laid in pastel blues, pinks, purples and greens. It is the pair of The Departure of the Boats, painted from the same window: the fleet at rest, then the fleet going out.
“In the afternoon, I worked in my room on my caloges”
The vessels Beached fishing boats at Étretat, and caloges: retired fishing boats covered with tarred planks and used for storage, as Monet's letter and the Art Institute explain. Not individual named boats.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats leaving the beach at Étretat Unnamed
The Departure of the Boats, Étretat (Le Départ des bateaux, Étretat), 1885
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1922.428)
Medium Oil on canvas
Kept indoors by bad autumn weather at Étretat, Monet painted from his window at the Hôtel Blanquet. On 24 November 1885 he told Alice Hoschedé he had worked in the rain on the caloges, the old boats roofed over for storage, and then tried a picture of the boats departing. This is that picture: the working boats sliding off the beach into a wet, soft-coloured sea, groups of figures sketched in quick strokes at the water's edge. Chicago pairs it with Boats on the Beach at Étretat, painted from the same viewpoint. The fleet at rest, then the fleet going out.
“then I attempted to do, always through the window, a picture of the boats departing.”
The vessels Fishing boats of Étretat setting out from the beach; retired boats covered with tarred planks served as storage huts called caloges.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats drawn up on the beach at Étretat Unnamed
Étretat: The Beach and the Falaise d'Amont, 1885
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1964.204)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet chose to go to Étretat with his family out of season, in the autumn and winter of 1885, when the summer visitors had gone. In this sun-soaked view of the Amont cliff, in saturated blues, oranges and pinks, the beach is empty except for a small group of local fishing boats gathered on the shore. They are the only sign of life, and they tell us whose beach it really was out of season. Painted in the same months as his pictures of the boats seen from his hotel window, it shows the fleet in full sun.
“the beach appears desolate aside from a small grouping of local fishing boats gathered at the shore”
The vessels Local fishing boats drawn up on the beach at Étretat on the Normandy coast, as the Art Institute describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Painting
Covered river boat at the harbour of Les Andelys Unnamed
Les Andelys, Côte d'Aval, 1886
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1993.208)
Medium Oil on canvas
This view of the little river harbour of Les Andelys, on the Seine near Giverny, belongs to Signac's first series painted in dots and dashes of contrasting colour, the technique his friend Seurat had originated. Signac would become its most ardent champion, and here he is already making it his own through geometry: a triangle of blue bends the river, trapezoids build the cultivated hill. The covered boat moored at the bank in the foreground gives the design its human scale, a solid shape in a landscape turning into light.
The vessels A covered river boat moored at the harbour of Les Andelys on the Seine; not a named vessel.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Harbours and light · Drawing
Rowing boat approaching the jetty at Dalarö Unnamed
Sommarnöje (Summer Fun), 1886
Artist Anders Zorn (1860 to 1920)
Source Sold at Stockholms Auktionsverk, Stockholm, 2010
Medium Watercolour
Zorn's wife Emma, in a white dress and hat, stands at the edge of a wooden pier at Dalarö near Stockholm, waiting for their friend Carl Gustav Dahlström, who is rowing towards her across rippling water under a grey sky. The boat is the whole event of the picture: someone arriving, a moment about to happen. Painted in the early summer of 1886, soon after their honeymoon, the watercolour catches that fleeting moment with the lessons of the French Impressionists Zorn had seen in Paris, in an austere Scandinavian palette. In 2010 it set a record for a Swedish painting.
The vessels A small wooden rowing boat rowed by the Zorns' friend Carl Gustav Dahlström at Dalarö; not a named vessel.
Sources Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats on the beach at Saintes-Maries Unnamed
Fishing Boats on the Beach at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Vissersboten op het strand van Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer), 1888
Artist Vincent van Gogh (1853 to 1890)
Where to see it Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (s0028V1962)
Medium Oil on canvas
In June 1888 Van Gogh went to Saintes-Maries on the Mediterranean and wrote to Émile Bernard of little green, red and blue boats on the flat sand, so pretty that one thought of flowers. The fishermen put out to sea too early for him to paint on the beach, so he drew the boats there and made the painting at home. The Van Gogh Museum points to their flat areas of colour, strong outlines and the absence of shadows on the sand, lessons from his Japanese prints. The boats are the whole song of the picture, beached flowers of colour under a southern sky.
“little green, red, blue boats, so pretty in shape and colour that one thought of flowers”
The vessels Van Gogh described them as one-man boats that hardly went onto the high sea, dashing out when there was no wind and coming back to land if there was a bit too much.
Sources Van Gogh Museum · Van Gogh Letters
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Pleasure yachts moored at Argenteuil Unnamed
Sailing Boats at Argenteuil (Voiliers à Argenteuil), c. 1888
Artist Gustave Caillebotte (1848 to 1894)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1954 31)
Medium Oil on canvas
Caillebotte was a sailor who designed his own yachts and won races. In 1881 he bought a house at Petit Gennevilliers, across the river from Argenteuil where the Cercle de la Voile de Paris had its base. Here he paints what the Musée d'Orsay calls the flotilla of pleasure boats moored downstream from the old wooden bridge. The masts and the bridge make a firm structure of verticals and horizontals, loosened by the diagonals of the sails and the landing stage. Broad, closely laid strokes catch the shimmer of the river. These are boats painted by a man who loved to sail them.
“the flotilla of pleasure boats moored downstream from the old wooden bridge at Argenteuil”
The vessels Pleasure sailing boats on the Seine at Argenteuil, the stretch of river used by the Cercle de la Voile de Paris; not individual named vessels.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia
Image: Gustave Caillebotte, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Fishing boats at sea off Saintes-Maries Unnamed
Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer (Zeegezicht bij Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer), 1888
Artist Vincent van Gogh (1853 to 1890)
Where to see it Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (s0117V1962)
Medium Oil on canvas
Van Gogh took three canvases to Saintes-Maries in June 1888 and covered them all: two seascapes and a view of the village. The Van Gogh Museum says he painted this one looking at the Mediterranean from the beach, and grains of sand are still in the paint. He told Theo the sea had a colour like mackerel, changing, so that you could not always tell whether it was green or purple. The waves are laid on with brush and palette knife, and his signature sits in bright red, a red note in the green. Out on that shifting sea a small fishing boat leans under its sails, the one-man craft he described to Bernard.
“has a colour like mackerel, in other words, changing”
The vessels The small fishing boats of Saintes-Maries, which Van Gogh described as one-man boats that hardly went onto the high sea and came back to land when the wind rose.
Sources Van Gogh Museum · Van Gogh Letters
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing boat off the jetty at Cassis Unnamed
The Jetty at Cassis, Opus 198 (La Jetée de Cassis), 1889
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1976.201.19)
Medium Oil on canvas
Between 1887 and 1891 Signac spent the warm months pursuing his two passions, marine painting and boating. This is one of five views he made at the Mediterranean port of Cassis between April and June 1889, singled out for praise when the series appeared at the Salon des Indépendants later that year. He found there white, blue and orange spread over the rise and fall of the land. The sea by the long jetty gives the picture its calm, and the opus number, which he inscribed on every picture until 1894, asks us to hear it like music.
“White, blue and orange, harmoniously spread over the beautiful rise and fall of the land.”
The vessels Small sailing boats off the port of Cassis on the Mediterranean; the vessels are not named.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing ships in the dock at Deauville Unnamed
The Dock of Deauville, 1891
Artist Eugène Boudin (1824 to 1898)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1939.165)
Medium Oil on wood panel
Ships at rest in harbour were a common theme of Boudin's mature art. Cleveland observes that he rarely painted the busy commercial life around them; he strove for calm, harmony and light. His brushwork by 1891 was very sketchy, yet he could still suggest the complex sails and structures of big vessels. He rubbed light tones around the masts and let white and grey drift over the dark lines of spars and rigging, as if the wind were passing through. The ships are portraits of stillness, breathing gently at their moorings.
“as if to evoke the passing wind and shifting positions common to nautical life”
The vessels Square-rigged sailing ships and a small steamer in the dock at Deauville on the Normandy coast; not individual named vessels.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art
Harbours and light · Painting
Small sailing boat, with a three-master on the horizon Unnamed
The Man at the Helm (L'Homme à la barre), 1892
Artist Théo van Rysselberghe (1862 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1976 79)
Medium Oil on canvas
Van Rysselberghe pushes a man in oilskins at the tiller of a small sailing boat into the lower right corner and gives almost the whole canvas to the ocean's waves, stippled in pointillist colour. A three-masted ship stands on the horizon. We are aboard, sharing the helmsman's view and his concentration. The picture belonged to Paul Signac and came to the French national collections through the gift of Signac's daughter Ginette in 1976.
The vessels An unnamed small open sailing boat, steered by a single helmsman in oilskins; a three-masted ship stands on the horizon.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Théo van Rysselberghe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Small sailing boat off Antibes Unnamed
The Boating Party (La partie en bateau), 1893 to 1894
Artist Mary Cassatt (1844 to 1926)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection (1963.10.94)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in the winter of 1893 to 1894 at Antibes, this is one of Cassatt's largest and most ambitious pictures. A boatman in a refined version of local fisherman's dress, sash and floppy beret, seen from behind, rows a woman and child, while the bright yellow boat cuts across the sea. The cropped, asymmetrical view shows her interest in Japanese prints. The oar, the sail and the man's arm converge on mother and child, placing them at the heart of the boat. In 1914 Cassatt still refused to sell it, having promised it to her family.
“About the painting, La Barque, I do not want to sell it; I have already promised it to my family.”
The vessels A small open sailboat with a canoe stern, no boom and three thwarts, rowed by a boatman; not an identified vessel.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Harbours and light · Painting
Valencian fishing boat hauled ashore by oxen Unnamed
The Return from Fishing: Hauling the Boat (Le Retour de la pêche : halage de la barque), 1894
Artist Joaquín Sorolla (1863 to 1923)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
A fishing boat comes home to the beach of El Cabañal at Valencia, and two oxen haul it in while its great lateen sail, swollen by the wind, seems to help them. A fisherman rides on the neck of one ox to guide it, another waits with a plank for the hull, and a last man in the boat trims a sheet. The sail fills half the canvas along a diagonal, and Sorolla draws flashes of light out of its shadow. Parisians loved its Mediterranean air and working vitality; the French state bought it in 1895 for the Musée du Luxembourg.
The vessels A lateen-rigged fishing boat, a barque catalane, hauled up the beach of El Cabañal at Valencia by oxen on its return; not a named vessel.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia (ES)
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, where the original is kept. Photo: Gonzalezpascalphotos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Small sailing boat in a cove Unnamed
The Little Boat (La Petite Barque), 1895
Artist Émile Friant (1863 to 1932)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy
Medium Oil on panel
Friant, working with the help of photographs, sets a young couple afloat in a small sailing boat in a cove beneath a cliff. She sits at the stern in a white dress with the tiller in her hand, seen in profile; he lies stretched in the boat, his arm resting on her. The lugsail behind their heads holds the centre of the composition, and the water they have just left lies in shadow. Shown at the Paris Salon of 1896, it is a picture of quiet intimacy, and the boat is its private world.
The vessels An unnamed small sailing boat with a lugsail (voile au tiers) and rudder.
Sources Wikipedia (FR)
Harbours and light · Painting
Boats at the Boieldieu Bridge, Rouen Unnamed
Morning, An Overcast Day, Rouen (Matin, temps gris, Rouen), 1896
Artist Camille Pissarro (1830 to 1903)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1980.21.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pissarro wanted the iron bridge on a rainy day, with traffic, carriages, pedestrians, workers on the quays, boats, smoke and mist, the whole scene full of animation and life. He painted the Boieldieu Bridge again and again from a room in the Hôtel d'Angleterre. The boats moored below the bridge supply the smoke and much of the animation he describes, the working river under a grey sky. It is a painting of a modern port as weather, where hulls, funnels and steam dissolve into the same wet morning light.
“iron bridge on a rainy day, with much traffic, carriages, pedestrians, workers on the quays, boats, smoke, mist in the distance”
The vessels A small steamer and barges at the quay below the Boieldieu Bridge; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Image: Camille Pissarro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Steamboats at the quays of Rouen Unnamed
Steamboats in the Port of Rouen (Bateaux à vapeur dans le port de Rouen), 1896
Artist Camille Pissarro (1830 to 1903)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (58.133)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pissarro arrived in Rouen in January 1896 for his second long stay already sure that the quays would make famous paintings, and he painted them from his window at the Hôtel de Paris. Here the steamboats are the life of the scene: funnels, smoke and hulls on the river, with the wharves and warehouses of working-class Saint-Sever across the water. The steamer in the foreground breathes a great plume of smoke across the quay, and with it the whole port seems to move, trade and weather mixed in one grey morning.
“the beautiful motifs of the quays, which will make famous paintings.”
The vessels Steamers at the quays of Rouen, with the wharves and warehouses of the Saint-Sever district across the Seine; none is identified.
Sources The Met
Image: Camille Pissarro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing boats of Nyländska Jaktklubben Unnamed
The Nyländska Jaktklubben Boat Harbour in Helsinki (Nyländska Jaktklubbens båthamn i Helsingfors), 1899
Artist Albert Edelfelt (1854 to 1905)
Where to see it Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki (Antell Collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
Edelfelt paints the sailing boats of Nyländska Jaktklubben, Helsinki's Swedish speaking yacht club, lying in their club harbour in the South Harbour, with the Cathedral and the Uspenski Cathedral standing out on the skyline. It was shown in the Finnish pavilion at the Paris World's Fair of 1900 and acquired in 1902 for the Antell Collection of the Finnish National Gallery. In 2000 it was hung behind the desk in the President's study at the Presidential Palace, so that for years Finns saw these little boats behind the President's televised New Year speech.
The vessels Sailing boats of Nyländska Jaktklubben, a Helsinki yacht club, in the club harbour in the South Harbour; none is identified.
Sources Wikipedia (DE)
Image: Albert Edelfelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Harbours and light · Painting
Venetian sailing boat with a yellow sail Unnamed
Venice, the Yellow Sail (Venise, la voile jaune), 1904
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it Musée national d'Art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, on deposit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, Besançon (Da.970.1.100)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in Venice in 1904, this divisionist seascape sets a single sailing boat on the lagoon before the campanile of Saint Mark's, with the palaces, domes and towers of the city behind. The yellow sail of the title is the note that holds the picture together, a point of warm colour on which the whole view turns. One sail is enough to organise Venice around it. The collectors Adèle and George Besson gave the picture to the State in 1963, and since 1972 it has been on deposit at Besançon.
The vessels An unnamed sailing boat on the Venetian lagoon, carrying the yellow sail of the title.
Sources memoirevive.besancon.fr · Wikipedia (FR)
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'Archéologie, Besançon, where the original is kept. Photo: Wikipedro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Sailing boats in the Old Port of Marseille Unnamed
Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde (La Bonne Mère), Marseille, 1905 to 1906
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (55.220.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
After visiting Marseille late in 1905, Signac painted two canvases in his studio: the entrance to the port, and this view towards the hill crowned by Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, the church seamen called the Good Mother. The harbour below lies under her gaze, built from rectangular strokes of unmixed colour set like the tesserae of a mosaic. The Met links the bold palette to Signac's contact with Cross and Matisse at Saint-Tropez in the summer of 1904. It is a harbour painted as a devotion, the sailors' church watching over the sailors' boats.
“the church nicknamed the ‘Good Mother’ by seamen”
The vessels Boats of the harbour of Marseille beneath Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, the church the Met says seamen nicknamed the Good Mother; the vessels are not named.
Sources The Met
Harbours and light · Painting
Two sailing boats at a Normandy harbour mouth Unnamed
Little Harbor in Normandy (Petit Port en Normandie), 1909
Artist Georges Braque (1882 to 1963)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1970.98)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Art Institute calls this the first fully realised example of Braque's early Cubism, painted in spring 1909 as he and Picasso worked in close dialogue. The Channel coast is described in severe geometry and a sober, pale palette, and the space is compressed so that the two sailing boats seem pushed forward to the front edge of the picture. Braque added a fringe of whitecaps and dashes of cloud to keep it moving. The boats are the living subject in a world turned to geometry. Shown at the Salon des Indépendants in March 1909, it was the first major Cubist work seen in so prominent a venue.
“a fringe of whitecaps to the sea and dashes of clouds across the sky”
The vessels Two small sailing boats at a harbour on the English Channel coast of Normandy, as the Art Institute describes; the vessels are not named.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Art Institute of Chicago, where the original is kept. Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Harbours and light · Painting
Large sailing vessels at the entrance to the port of Marseille Unnamed
The Entrance to the Port of Marseille (L'Entrée du port de Marseille), 1911
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris (RF 1977 324), on deposit at the Musée Cantini, Marseille
Medium Oil on canvas
Signac painted sailing ships at the entrance to the port of Marseille in a palette dominated by pink and blue, with the city's fortifications framing the harbour mouth. The canvas is large, more than a metre and a half wide, and the big sailing vessels give it its scale and its calm. The French State bought the picture in 1920 for the Musée du Luxembourg, and since 1983 it has hung on deposit in Marseille itself, at the Musée Cantini, a stone's throw from the harbour it shows.
The vessels Large sailing vessels at the harbour entrance of Marseille; none is individually identified.
Sources Musée d’Orsay · Wikipedia (FR)
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Mauritius, Hollandia, Overijssel and Vriesland Named ship
The Return to Amsterdam of the Second Expedition to the East Indies, 19 July 1599
Artist Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom (c. 1562 to 1640)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-2858)
Medium Oil on canvas
Under Jacob Cornelisz van Neck, eight Dutch ships sailed for the Indonesian archipelago in 1598, and on 19 July 1599 the first four came home from Bantam. Vroom shows the Mauritius, Hollandia, Overijssel and Vriesland on the IJ, surrounded by small boats and rowing boats packed with people, the profile of Amsterdam on the right. The verse on the frame says the four had gone to fetch spices, planted the trade at Bantam and came back richly to Amsterdam. This was one of the voyages that came before the founding of the Dutch East India Company in 1602, and Vroom signed and dated it in the year of the return.
The real ship Eight ships under Jacob Cornelisz van Neck sailed for the Indonesian archipelago in 1598; the Mauritius, Hollandia, Overijssel and Vriesland returned from Bantam on 19 July 1599, while the others sailed on to the Moluccas and returned laden with nutmeg, mace and cloves.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Hollandia, Mauritius, Overijssel and Vriesland Named ship
The Return to Amsterdam of the Second Expedition to the East Indies on 19 July 1599, 1610 to 1620
Artist Andries van Eertvelt (1590 to 1652)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0748)
Medium Oil on panel
Andries van Eertvelt, generally seen as the first Flemish marine painter of the seventeenth century, took up a thoroughly Dutch triumph: this early work is based on Vroom's more famous picture of the spice ships coming home. The Hollandia sits at the centre of the returned ships, Amsterdam on the right, and the boats around them are full of life, including a man standing on his head in a small craft. Greenwich notes how carefully rigging and people on deck are shown, with men climbing aloft. That an Antwerp painter chose the subject shows how Flemish artists took part in the northern art market.
The real ship The Overijssel, Vriesland, Mauritius and Hollandia returned from the second Dutch trading expedition to the East Indies in 1599, one of the voyages that preceded the Dutch East India Company of 1602.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Rijksmuseum
Image: Andries van Eertvelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Kaags filled with passengers Unnamed
Dutch Vessels in a Strong Breeze, c. 1618
Artist Jan Porcellis (c. 1584 to 1632)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0722)
Medium Oil on panel
Two kaags crammed with passengers run before a gust that fills their sails and beats the water into dark, spumy waves; in the bow of one sits a figure dressed in red. The high horizon and the sharp line between dark sea and ashen sky still belong to the generation of Vroom, which is why Greenwich dates this early panel to around 1618, when Porcellis had just joined the Antwerp guild. It may show the waterways around that city. Samuel van Hoogstraten would later hail its painter as the great Raphael of sea painting, and he signed it with his monogram on the Dutch flag.
“the great Raphael of sea painting”
The vessels The kaag was a leeboard vessel for inland waterways, often used on the Zuiderzee as a ferry carrying cargo and people to and from seagoing ships.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Three-masted merchant ship, possibly a fluyt, in a gale Unnamed
Dutch Ships in a Gale, c. 1620
Artist Jan Porcellis (c. 1584 to 1632)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0721)
Medium Oil on panel
A three-masted merchant ship, possibly a fluyt, labours before a storm in convoy with two other vessels, her mainsail broken loose in the wind while men facing leeward fight the rigging. Sky and sea are painted in almost the same dark grey and merge at the horizon, told apart only by white crests; a barrel floats in the foreground. This is one of Porcellis's graeuwtjes, the little grey-in-grey paintings, where the weather matters more than the ships. Scholars read the loose sail two ways: human helplessness in the hands of God, as in Psalm 107, or the fine seamanship of the Dutch.
The vessels An unnamed three-masted merchant ship, possibly a fluyt, the Dutch cargo ship type, sailing in convoy with two other vessels.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Prince Royal Named ship
The Return of Prince Charles from Spain, 5 October 1623
Artist Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom (c. 1562 to 1640)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0710)
Medium Oil on canvas
Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham come home aboard the Prince Royal after their failed attempt to win the Spanish Infanta, leading the English fleet into the Solent towards Portsmouth, the tip of the Isle of Wight beyond. Behind her sail the St Andrew, Defiance and Bonaventure, and in all twenty-three ships string along the horizon under striped ensigns of blue, white and gold with the cross of St George in the canton. A Latin label gives thanks that the prince returned safely to Portsmouth, by God's favour, on 5 October 1623. Greenwich thinks this version was painted for Buckingham himself, by Vroom and his studio.
The real ship The Prince Royal, 55 guns, carries the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Buckingham on her half deck, followed by the St Andrew (42 guns), Defiance (40) and Bonaventure (34).
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch East Indiaman under VOC flags Unnamed
The Departure of an East Indiaman, c. 1630 to 1660
Artist Hendrick Staets (active 1630 to 1660)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0784)
Medium Oil on panel
A large East Indiaman leaves port flying the flags and pennant of the Dutch East India Company, firing a salute as she goes. On the quay two figures point after her in farewell, and Greenwich suggests they may have money riding on her voyage. A church on the far coast places the scene on the Zuiderzee, and the ships ranked one behind another into the distance recall Simon de Vlieger. Hendrick Staets, rediscovered only in the 1950s, is a shadowy Leiden painter, but here he catches a departure seen from the shore, where hope and investment wave goodbye together.
The vessels An unnamed East Indiaman of the Dutch East India Company, flying the Company's flags on her stern and foremast.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Hendrick Staets, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Fishing pink Unnamed
A Fishing Pink on a Windy Day, c. 1631
Artist Jan Porcellis (c. 1584 to 1632)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0720)
Medium Oil on panel
Painted shortly before his death, this small panel shows Porcellis at his most subtle. A fishing pink heels sharply as two men tend their nets, a big merchantman on the horizon painted almost the colour of the sea. Dark rolling clouds circle a vivid white mass from which light spills onto the water, and the painter has even laid the shadows of the clouds across the pink's sails. Greenwich notes that Porcellis owned a small boat of his own, but built such scenes as much from imagination as from life.
The vessels Pinks were flat-bottomed, square-rigged fishing boats with long leeboards, built to land on the open beach to discharge their catch and also used to carry people.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Ships bringing Frederick V to Vlissingen, 1613 Unnamed
The Arrival at Vlissingen of the Elector Palatine Frederick V, c. 1632
Artist Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom (c. 1562 to 1640)
Where to see it Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem
Medium Oil on canvas
A huge canvas, over four metres wide, commissioned by the city of Haarlem in 1632 to remember a visit made nearly twenty years before. In 1613 Frederick V, Elector Palatine, came to the Dutch Republic on his return from England, where he had married Elizabeth, daughter of James I, and Vroom shows the ships about to anchor in the roads off Vlissingen, the town on the horizon. From a high viewpoint every vessel is portrayed in detail and the little waves are laid out with almost mechanical regularity. It is the old panoramic manner of the first Dutch marine specialist, the ship portrait as civic memory.
The vessels The ships that brought Frederick V and his bride from England to the Dutch Republic in 1613, shown arriving at the Vlissingen roads.
Image: Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Hercules and Eenhorn Named ship
The 'Hercules' and 'Eenhorn' off Hoorn, 1634
Artist Bonaventura Peeters the Elder (1614 to 1652)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC1839)
Medium Oil on canvas
Hoorn, one of the most prosperous ports of the Zuiderzee, grown rich on the East Indies trade and the fisheries, stands behind with its church tower and fortifications. In front the warship Hercules has just come to anchor and is lowering her sails, the Dutch flag and the flag of Hoorn flying, Hercules and the lion carved on her stern, a trumpeter blowing aft. Beyond lies the Eenhorn under the flag of the Amsterdam Admiralty, and a little speeljacht sails on the left. Peeters painted it at twenty, the year he became a master of the Antwerp guild, and it is a larger, public picture made for a proud city.
The real ship Two Dutch warships. The Eenhorn cannot be identified with certainty, as two ships of that name are recorded: one of 34 guns built in 1623 and one of 30 guns built in 1625.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Bonaventura Peeters the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch frigate and gaff-rigged wijdschip Unnamed
A Dutch Man of War and Various Vessels in a Breeze, c. 1638 to 1645
Artist Simon de Vlieger (c. 1601 to 1653)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG3025)
Medium Oil on oak panel
A grey, sunless day and a stiff breeze that whips up the wave tops and flattens the sails against the rigging. A frigate flying the Dutch flag and a gaff-rigged wijdschip both sail as close to the wind as they can, while smaller boats run fast before it, and a second warship lies at anchor. The water stays relatively calm, and the crowding of vessels suggests the sheltered estuaries of the Rhine delta near Rotterdam, where De Vlieger was born. His skill in rendering ships and how they sailed was an important influence on Jan van de Cappelle and Willem van de Velde the Younger.
“to sail as close to the direction of the wind as possible”
The vessels Unnamed: a Dutch frigate, a gaff-rigged wijdschip used for carrying people and goods in coastal waters, and smaller open and gaff-rigged boats.
Sources National Gallery
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Amelia (Aemilia) Named ship
Before the Battle of the Downs, 21 October 1639, showing Tromp's Flagship 'Amelia', c. 1639
Artist Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman (c. 1623 to 1664)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3189)
Medium Oil on canvas
A Dutch fleet lies assembled off the Straits of Dover in choppy seas, and in the centre foreground rides the Amelia, a man-of-war launched in 1632 and Maarten Tromp's flagship at the Battle of the Downs against Spain in 1639. Nooms, who spent his early life at sea and signed himself Zeeman, the sailor, records her taffrail with his usual attention to detail, the carved arms of Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange on her stern. It is less a battle picture than a portrait of a flagship on the eve of her great day.
The real ship A man-of-war launched in 1632, the Amelia was Maarten Tromp's flagship at the Battle of the Downs between the Dutch and the Spanish in 1639.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Fishing boats in a calm Unnamed
Calm Sea, after 1640
Artist Simon de Vlieger (c. 1601 to 1653)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (06.1200)
Medium Oil on wood
On the left the horizon simply dissolves into a vast becalmed sea; on the right fishermen ply their trade beneath a Dutch flag. With a deliberately limited range of tones, pale blues, greys and a light brown sail, De Vlieger calibrated the light in sky and water so precisely that the Met sees him as a master of a particularly local landscape. This is the quiet lesson he passed to Willem van de Velde the Younger, who studied with him: the sea as air and light rather than spectacle.
The vessels Unnamed small Dutch fishing boats, one flying the Dutch flag.
Sources The Met · National Gallery
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Three damlopers on the Maas Unnamed
The Maas at Dordrecht in a Storm, c. 1645 to 1650
Artist Aelbert Cuyp (1620 to 1691)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG6405)
Medium Oil on wood (probably oak)
Cuyp, best known for calm and prosperous river views, here paints a thunderstorm, probably early in his career. Lightning flashes above his home town of Dordrecht, lighting the rooftops and church tower while rain pours from a leaden sky; in the foreground sunlight catches the spray thrown back over a bow, and three damlopers tack against the squall with sails blown taut. Cuyp builds the drama from diagonals of cloud, birds, lightning and mast, with broad swirling strokes in the sky and short choppy ones in the water. Yet the sailors stay calm; the National Gallery sees in them the quiet heroism of endurance.
The vessels Damlopers ('dam runners') were slow, sturdy trading vessels of shallow draught built for Holland's inland waters; they could be hauled over dams and dykes, and used leeboards instead of a deep keel, which made tacking against the wind slow.
Sources National Gallery
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch frigates at anchor with a wijdschip and kagen Unnamed
A View of an Estuary, with Dutch Vessels at a Jetty and a Dutch Man of War at Anchor, c. 1645 to 1650
Artist Simon de Vlieger (c. 1601 to 1653)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG4455)
Medium Oil on oak panel
Two Dutch frigates lie at peace in a quiet estuary, perhaps the Maas, with gunports open, presumably for maintenance or drill; the nearer shows the arms of the Province of Holland on her stern. Service boats, a wijdschip and two small kagen, work at the jetty, perhaps running supplies out to them, and on the quay a cross-section of Dutch society watches or fishes. A low sun backlights the translucent sails. The National Gallery suggests such a scene reassured its first owners of national security and naval power. De Vlieger signed it on a spar sticking awkwardly out of the water.
“a floating spar which sticks awkwardly out of the water on the right”
The vessels Unnamed Dutch frigates of the 1640s, the nearer with the arms of Holland on her stern. The wijdschip at the jetty is a small gaff-rigged transport vessel, and the kagen are working boats.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Simon de Vlieger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch fleet at Dordrecht, 1646 Unnamed
The Visit of Frederik Hendrik to Dordrecht in 1646, 1649
Artist Simon de Vlieger (c. 1601 to 1653)
Where to see it Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Medium Oil on panel
The Groote Vergaderinge of 1646, when more ships than had ever come together gathered at Dordrecht with some thirty thousand foot soldiers, was one of the great sights of the age. Aelbert Cuyp painted it too, and the National Gallery of Art links his pictures to the parade paintings De Vlieger was making in these same years. Here the master who taught Willem van de Velde the Younger turns the Stadholder's visit into one of his late panoramas. He painted the subject more than once, with other versions in Budapest and at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
The vessels In 1646 an enormous transport fleet with some thirty thousand foot soldiers assembled at Dordrecht, almost certainly as a last show of force by Frederik Hendrik against the southern Netherlands as truce negotiations began.
Sources wga.hu · National Gallery of Art
Image: Simon de Vlieger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Brederode Named ship
The Brederode off Hellevoetsluis, mid-17th century
Artist Simon de Vlieger (c. 1601 to 1653)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC4158)
Medium Oil on oak panel
Two Dutch warships lie off Hellevoetsluis, a major Dutch naval station, its windmill and walled defences on the right. On the left a vice admiral's flagship with the arms of Amsterdam on her stern waits as a boat rows passengers out to her. The principal ship on the right is probably the Brederode, Maarten Tromp's flagship, flying the Dutch flag at main and fore. Greenwich calls the painting large, formal and impressive. De Vlieger, pupil of Porcellis and master of Willem van de Velde the Younger, bridged two generations of Dutch marine painting, and the picture carries a quiet gravity: Tromp would be killed aboard her in 1653.
The real ship Built in 1645, the Brederode was the flagship of Lieutenant Admiral Maarten Tromp, who was killed aboard her at the Battle of Scheveningen in 1653.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Simon de Vlieger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch states yacht firing a salute Unnamed
A Dutch Yacht firing a Salute as a Barge pulls away, and Many Small Vessels at Anchor, 1650
Artist Jan van de Cappelle (1626 to 1679)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG965)
Medium Oil on wood (probably oak)
A state yacht fires a salute as a barge is rowed urgently away, perhaps marking the departure of the man with feathers in his hat and bright buttons seated at its stern. The sea, in the National Gallery's words, is flat calm and luminous; a forest of masts crowds the middle distance under threatening clouds and a fitful sun, and in the foreground a pont, a long flat-bottomed ferry, carries passengers and two horses gazing at their own reflections. Van de Cappelle painted indoors from sketches and imagination, lengthening the masts and darkening the clouds, and put mood before record.
“Jan van de Cappelle's sea is flat calm and luminous”
The vessels The central vessel is a statenjacht, an official yacht used to carry members of the States General or the provincial states; in the foreground a pont, a long flat-bottomed craft, ferries foot passengers.
Sources National Gallery
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
State barge and the Dutch home fleet Unnamed
The Home Fleet Saluting the State Barge, 1650
Artist Jan van de Cappelle (1626 to 1679)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-453)
Medium Oil on panel
A row of ships lies at anchor on water so smooth it mirrors them, and two yachts fire a salute as a state barge full of officials is rowed between them. Van de Cappelle, who belongs to the generation of Ruisdael and Cuyp, was not a man to paint sea battles; his fleets parade or rest at the mouths of wide rivers. Here ships stretch away in perspective as far as the eye can see beneath an imposing cloudy sky, and he signed and dated the panel in 1650. The Rijksmuseum speaks of the grandeur unfolding on the water: naval power shown at rest.
“Van de Cappelle superbly captured the grandeur unfolding on the water”
The vessels A state barge carrying government officials is rowed between two yachts firing a salute, with the ships of the home fleet at anchor beyond.
Sources Rijksmuseum · wga.hu
Image: Jan van de Cappelle, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch transport fleet assembled at Dordrecht in 1646, with a pleyt and the yacht of Frederik Hendrik's lifeguards Unnamed
The Maas at Dordrecht, c. 1650
Artist Aelbert Cuyp (1620 to 1691)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1940.2.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Cuyp's golden river scene records a real gathering. In 1646 an enormous transport fleet, more ships than had ever come together there, and some thirty thousand foot soldiers assembled at Dordrecht for two weeks before sailing on 12 July for Bergen op Zoom and Sas van Gent. A warship flying the Dutch tricolour moves in midstream on the left, a large yacht bearing the Orange arms, that of Prince Frederik Hendrik's lifeguards, fires a salute, and the focus is a simple pleyt on the right, where a portly officer in an orange sash awaits dignitaries arriving by rowing boat. The irony, the National Gallery of Art notes, is that nothing came of the plan.
The vessels The fleet gathered at Dordrecht for two weeks in 1646 and sailed on 12 July, some ships for Bergen op Zoom and others for Sas van Gent. The pleyt in the foreground is a relatively simple vessel; the large yacht with the Orange arms belonged to the lifeguards of Prince Frederik Hendrik.
Sources National Gallery of Art
Dutch Golden Age · Drawing
Wapen van Holland Named ship
The Pepper Wharf of the Dutch East India Company, Amsterdam, c. 1650
Artist Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman (c. 1623 to 1664)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (PAH4313)
Medium Graphite, pen and brown ink, brown wash
This is the Dutch East India Company at work rather than in glory: its pepper wharf in Amsterdam, drawn in graphite, pen and brown wash by Reinier Zeeman, a sailor who turned to art after a rough life at sea. Greenwich notes that the name Nooms appears in no document of his life, and calls this drawing rather untypical and topographically of great interest. Among the shipping it identifies the Wappen van Hollandt of 1653. Zeeman's ships are drawn with the accuracy of a man who knew them from the deck, which is why other artists copied his etchings.
“This rather untypical drawing shows the Dutch ship ‘Wappen van Hollandt’ (1653), and is topographically of great interest.”
The real ship The Wappen van Hollandt was a Dutch ship of 1653, shown here at the Dutch East India Company's pepper wharf in Amsterdam.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Passenger barges, turf punt and hay barge becalmed Unnamed
A River Scene with Dutch Vessels Becalmed, c. 1650
Artist Jan van de Cappelle (1626 to 1679)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG4456)
Medium Oil on canvas
Humble inshore craft become what the National Gallery calls a majestic panorama. Two barges carry passengers, lawyers in short black cloaks and elegant aristocrats among them; the oarsmen put their backs into it but make little progress, with no wind or current to help, and not even the smallest wake follows them. Nearer still, a pont flying the blue and white flag of Texel carries a load of turf, the crew's washing hung on a boom, and behind it a barge carries a gigantic bale of hay. Almost two thirds of the canvas is soft grey sky above a forest of brown, ochre and white sails.
“Not even the smallest wake follows the two vessels.”
The vessels Everyday inshore craft: two passenger barges, one with the Dutch ensign and one probably flying the flag of Hoorn, a pont carrying turf and probably from Texel, and a barge loaded with hay.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Jan van de Cappelle, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Two coastal craft at dawn Unnamed
Two Vessels by the Shore at Day Break, 1651
Artist Jan van de Cappelle (1626 to 1679)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0843)
Medium Oil on panel
Daybreak, and two coastal craft with a larger vessel behind lie on mirror-smooth water in a golden glow. In the smaller boat a man sits with his back to us, talking to a woman with folded arms, while a child emerges from under a canopy: the boat is also their home. Ghostly figures work the sails in the half-light, another man hauls up an anchor, and a cow on the foreshore stands silhouetted against the light. Greenwich finds elegance and dignity here, a contrast to the agitated seas of other Dutch painters, and small touches of red, the men's caps, the child's bodice, a flag, draw the eye.
“There is elegance and dignity in this peaceful early morning scene”
The vessels Unnamed Dutch coastal craft; the canopy in the nearer boat shows it served as the family's home as well as their living.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Jan van de Cappelle, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch Indiaman coming to anchor, with a kaag Unnamed
Calm: A Dutch Ship coming to Anchor and Another under Sail, 1657
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG870)
Medium Oil on canvas
A merchant ship, probably an Indiaman home from the Far East or the West Indies, is coming to anchor in the early morning, her white sails lowered one by one. A kaag flying the blue and white flag of Texel waits in front to carry the cargo ashore, its sail glowing in low sun, and a man silhouetted against it starts to hoist a boat. To the right a fluyt with a whaling crane drifts almost becalmed. The National Gallery reads it as the end of a long and dangerous voyage, and the quiet relief of arrival is in every slack sail.
“After a long and dangerous journey, perhaps to the Far East or the West Indies, the white sails are being lowered one by one.”
The vessels An unnamed large armed merchantman, probably an Indiaman, with a vice admiral's flag at the fore suggesting she led a small convoy. The kaag beside her was a flat-bottomed inshore craft that carried goods and people.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch warship of the Province of Holland, with a kaag and a fishing boat Unnamed
A Dutch Ship and Other Small Vessels in a Strong Breeze, 1658
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG2573)
Medium Oil on canvas
The young Willem van de Velde painted this exhilarating little picture early in his career, and it shows the influence of Simon de Vlieger, with whom he may have studied. A warship heels before an advancing storm, the Dutch flag flying boldly at the main and the arms of Holland on her stern; her gunports are open and the cannon run out, probably for practice. A small fishing boat is tossed on her wash, and close to us the crew of a kaag take in sail to slow her. On the faded flag of the kaag what appears to be the painter's own signature can just be made out.
“A warship keels over in the face of an advancing storm, a Dutch flag flying boldly at its mainmast”
The vessels An unnamed Dutch warship bearing the arms of the Province of Holland; the kaag was a flat-bottomed craft used for inshore journeys.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch three-master and yacht Unnamed
Ships in the Roads (also called Warships at Amsterdam), c. 1658
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Mauritshuis, The Hague (inv. 200)
Medium Oil on canvas
A day on the water in almost dead calm, painted by the young Van de Velde around 1658. On the right the crew of a three-master hoist the headsail while a passenger is rowed ashore, and the whole business is watched from a yacht in the foreground. The stern of the ship is richly carved with a red Dutch lion and the arms of Amsterdam. The picture follows the calm parade type Jan van de Cappelle had just developed, and here Van de Velde is a portraitist of ships, inviting the eye to linger over masts, sails, carved arms and flags. He signed it across the ribbon on the yacht's taffrail.
“he gives an impression of a day on the water in almost dead calm”
The vessels An unnamed Dutch three-master whose stern bears the arms of Amsterdam, with a yacht lying in the foreground.
Sources Mauritshuis · wga.hu
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Hoeker and a herring buss of Hoorn Unnamed
Dutch Ships in a Calm, c. 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG6465)
Medium Oil on wood (probably oak)
A small panel, barely 36 by 43 centimetres, holds a whole early morning, perhaps at the beginning of spring. A hoeker's white sail blazes in the sun, a fishing buss carries the arms of the city of Hoorn on her stern, and further out an anchored warship waits for a breeze while porpoises break the water in the shadows. The reflections are perfect and the men go about their work with no sense of urgency. Van de Velde signed WVV on the taffrail beneath the golden horn of Hoorn, and at least eight other versions are known, which shows how much buyers loved this tranquil vision.
“at least eight other versions of it are known”
The vessels On the left are a hoeker and a fishing buss with the arms of Hoorn on her stern; her striped flag suggests that, though built in Hoorn, she worked out of Texel. On the right a kaag, a flat-bottomed inshore transport, catches what little breeze there is.
Sources National Gallery
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch states yacht and inshore vessels at evening Unnamed
Dutch Vessels lying Inshore in a Calm, one Saluting, 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG6407)
Medium Oil on canvas
Here Van de Velde cares less for rigging than for evening light. A low, warm sun throws the nearby vessels into shadow and turns them into what the National Gallery calls an elegant, rhythmic series of curves and angles, their sails almost translucent against the sky. A little way out lies a statenjacht, the yacht of the States General, and a puff of smoke from a hidden gun announces an important visitor, yet the quiet is barely disturbed. Sailors carry on without hurry, and one lone figure stands with his back to us, sharing our view and perhaps our mood.
“their sails almost translucent”
The vessels The statenjacht, or state yacht, carried members of the States General and other dignitaries; the other craft are small inshore vessels.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
English ketch with a weyschuit, Dutch merchantman and smalschip Unnamed
An English Vessel and Dutch Ships Becalmed, c. 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG874)
Medium Oil on wood (probably oak)
Flags droop and hardly anyone moves: the sea is flat and calm and the boats lie still. An English ketch flying the flag of Saint George sits in the foreground with a weyschuit, a small open boat, almost alongside, while a Dutch merchant ship lies broadside with a smalschip nosing in beside her. Every craft is accurately drawn, with the vigour and detail his clients expected, but the low horizon opens a wide sky of drifting clouds against which masts, rigging and curved sails make an intricate geometry. An English visitor becalmed among Dutch craft, some twelve years before the painter himself crossed to England.
The vessels Unnamed craft: an English ketch flying the flag of Saint George, a weyschuit (a small open boat), a Dutch merchant ship and a smalschip, with other vessels of different sizes and purposes in the distance.
Sources National Gallery · Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch states yacht firing a salute Unnamed
A River Scene with a Dutch Yacht firing a Salute as Two Barges pull away, mid-1660s
Artist Jan van de Cappelle (1626 to 1679)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG966)
Medium Oil on canvas
This Dutch river mouth is a busy place: vessels of all kinds lie moored close by and others move across the water further out. On the right a state yacht fires a salute as important visitors prepare to board from the barges beside her, and soldiers with spears stand by. Van de Cappelle breaks up the vast sky with moving clouds that cast deep shadows, and with almost abstract shapes of sails, masts and spars. A patch of brilliant blue at the centre, perhaps once a canopy and swags of fabric, has changed chemically over time and now looks brighter and flatter than he intended, as do the soldiers' cloaks.
“Vessels of all kinds are moored close to us, and others move across the water further out to sea.”
The vessels The central vessel on the right is a statenjacht (state yacht) firing a salute; the barges beside her carry the visitors.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Jan van de Cappelle, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Fishing pinks (pinken) on the beach at Scheveningen Unnamed
The Shore at Scheveningen, c. 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707), figures by Adriaen van de Velde
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG873)
Medium Oil on canvas
A brisk wind brings a small fleet of fishing pinks to shore at Scheveningen, three miles from The Hague, tossed by choppy waves under a fitful sun. Two boats already stand on planks in the sand, one with sails neatly stowed and one drying in the wind, ready to be carried out on the next tide, while men and women peg nets on poles along the beach. A covered wagon with the arms of Amsterdam delivers a soberly dressed man, for the fishing village was becoming a resort. The picture is a family work: the view by Willem the Younger, the wagon and figures by his brother Adriaen.
The vessels The pinks are the fishing boats of Scheveningen, worked from the open beach: beached boats stood on planks in the sand, ready to be lifted and carried out on the next tide.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Small Dutch fishing boats aground at low tide Unnamed
Small Dutch Vessels Aground at Low Water in a Calm, c. 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707) and studio
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG2574)
Medium Oil on canvas
Four small boats rest on the sand at low tide. Sails dry in the sun, Dutch flags hang limp, fishermen work without hurry and a figure with a basket wades through the shallows, while larger ships lie at anchor in the haze. The National Gallery finds in it a feeling of summer, heat and timelessness. Such pictures were very popular in the Dutch Republic, and this one was probably made by Willem the Younger with assistants in the busy family studio he shared with his father and brother Adriaen.
“a feeling of summer, heat and timelessness”
The vessels Unnamed small inshore craft run aground on a sandy shore at low tide, while bigger ships offshore wait for the tide.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch states yacht Unnamed
A State Yacht and Other Craft in Calm Water, c. 1660
Artist Jan van de Cappelle (1626 to 1679)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (12.31)
Medium Oil on wood
Great and small ships rest together on still water, and the Met explains what such a sight meant to the Dutch of the time: peace and prosperity after years of war, and a sense of things far greater than themselves. Van de Cappelle could afford such calm. Income from property and his father's dyeworks gave him a comfortable living, and he collected hundreds of paintings and drawings, among them works by Simon de Vlieger and Rembrandt. The state yacht at the centre is less a vessel than an emblem of a republic at rest.
The vessels A statenjacht, or state yacht, an official vessel used to carry members of the government and other dignitaries.
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Moored boats at Delft Unnamed
View of Delft (Gezicht op Delft), c. 1660 to 1661
Artist Johannes Vermeer (1632 to 1675)
Where to see it Mauritshuis, The Hague (92)
Medium Oil on canvas
The boats are the quietest actors in the most famous townscape of the Golden Age, and Vermeer uses them to set its mood. All are moored, their sails lowered; there is virtually no wind, and only a soft breeze ruffles the reflecting water in places. On the hull of the boat near the Rotterdam Gate he laid many tiny dots of paint, which suggest the reflection of the sparkling water. Nothing is going anywhere, and that stillness gives the city its air of tranquillity, the subtle reflections making the canvas, in the museum's words, an absolute masterpiece.
The vessels Unnamed inland boats moored at Delft with their sails lowered.
Sources Mauritshuis
Image: Johannes Vermeer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Kaag and working boats inshore, warships at anchor Unnamed
Dutch Vessels close Inshore at Low Tide, and Men Bathing, 1661
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG871)
Medium Oil on canvas
A summer evening on the Dutch coast, and the tide is going out. Men and boys swim in the calm shallows, a fisherman with a basket on his back crosses the wet sand, clothes dry on a kaag and a seaman carries a well-dressed man ashore on his back. Offshore the fleet lies at anchor, the nearest ship with gunports open and cannon run out, probably for practice, the second firing a salute. The National Gallery counts it among the finest early works of the painter, the best of four versions, and the quiet of the hour is its true subject.
“nothing disturbs the rare, comfortable tranquillity of life on the inshore vessels brought by a summer evening”
The vessels The kaag was an inshore transport vessel; behind it lies a wijdschip, a larger working vessel, possibly from Hoorn, and offshore the Dutch warships lie at anchor.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch states yacht (statenjacht) Unnamed
A Dutch Yacht surrounded by Many Small Vessels, saluting as Two Barges pull alongside, 1661
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG978)
Medium Oil on canvas
The National Gallery calls this the largest and most elaborate of its Van de Velde paintings. A states yacht in Dutch colours, the arms of Holland and Amsterdam on her stern, fires a salute as a barge bearing the arms of Amsterdam brings officials alongside; trumpeters on her high deck sound a fanfare, answered from a second barge. A whole flotilla gathers on a sea that shimmers like glass under a vast sunlit sky laced with masts and flags. A small pleasure yacht on the right flies a pennant with the initials W/VV, perhaps the painter's own family boat.
“the largest and most elaborate of the pictures by Willem van de Velde the Younger in the National Gallery's collection”
The vessels The central vessel is a statenjacht (state yacht) flying the Dutch colours, with the arms of the Province of Holland and of Amsterdam on her stern; the officials may have been crossing the Zuiderzee to visit the fleet at the Texel.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
States yacht and an admiral's flagship saluting Unnamed
Boats pulling out to a Yacht in a Calm, c. 1665
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG980)
Medium Oil on canvas
The sea is calm but nothing else is. Small boats pull hard from the shore towards two vessels firing salutes: a tall-sailed statenjacht flying the ensign of the States General, bringing officials to visit the admiral before the fleet sails, and the admiral's flagship itself. Beyond, more warships stand like shadows on the horizon. The Dutch Republic was often at war with England in these years, and the National Gallery suggests this may be a fleet preparing for battle; the urgency of the oarsmen against the stillness of the water carries that tension.
The vessels The statenjacht carried members of the government and visiting dignitaries out to the admiral before the fleet set sail; this one flies the ensign of the States General.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Squadron of Dutch warships of Amsterdam preparing to sail Unnamed
Dutch Ships in a Calm Sea, c. 1665
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-C-1707)
Medium Oil on canvas
A small squadron of six warships is about to leave. Sails are going up, anchors are being raised, the last provisions and crew are taken aboard, and a sloop of dignitaries, probably from the Admiralty, rows past to the sound of trumpets and saluting guns. On the ship at right the stern carries the arms of Amsterdam held by two standing lions. The Rijksmuseum stresses the enormous accuracy of rigging, sails and cannon, all laid out on a wide, calm sea. As early as 1778 a sale catalogue already singled the picture out as exceptional.
“one of the best gems by this outstanding marine painter”
The vessels Unnamed Dutch warships, probably part of a war fleet preparing to depart; the ship on the right bears the arms of Amsterdam on her stern.
Sources Rijksmuseum
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
State barge, East Indiamen and small craft Unnamed
Entrance to a Dutch Port, c. 1665
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (20.155.6)
Medium Oil on canvas
A whole maritime nation passes through one harbour mouth. The Met points to the range of craft, from small cargo and fishing boats to a state barge and East Indiamen bound on long voyages of trade and empire. The picture unites the nautical accuracy Van de Velde learned from his father, a celebrated draughtsman of ships, with the tonal painting he learned from his other teacher, Simon de Vlieger. In the foreground two humble figures wade ashore, a small human bridge between the viewer's solid ground and the busy world of ships beyond.
The vessels Unnamed vessels, ranging from small cargo and fishing boats to a state barge and East Indiamen bound on long trading voyages.
Sources The Met · Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Fluyts and a kaag at the Texel roadstead Unnamed
The Merchant Shipping Anchorage off Texel Island with Oudeschild in the Distance, 1665
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0916)
Medium Oil on canvas
The merchant roadstead off the eastern shore of Texel, one of the islands guarding the entrance to the Zuiderzee, painted by Bakhuizen alive with business. A great three-masted fluyt anchors the diagonal of the composition, a kaag with brown and cream sails runs before the wind on the right, a warship lies at anchor and the church tower of Oudeschild rises beyond. A man on the left blows a trumpet in signal, and a barrel painted with the red lion of Holland floats past. Greenwich sees theatrical light and the energy of a painter at the height of his career.
The vessels The fluyt was a Dutch merchant ship; the kaag, in the words of Greenwich, a common type of ferry boat, here sprit-rigged and running before the wind.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Wijdschip ferry of Texel with a pont and barge Unnamed
A River Scene with a Large Ferry and Numerous Dutch Vessels at Anchor, c. 1665
Artist Jan van de Cappelle (1626 to 1679)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG967)
Medium Oil on canvas
Working boats crowd a Dutch waterway, and Van de Cappelle lifts them into majesty by exaggerating their masts and bathing the folds of their sails in warm sunlight. A big wijdschip ferry flying the blue and white flags of Texel waits with well-dressed passengers aboard; officials in black talk on a barge; a flat pont seems to fly the ensign of Hoorn. Among bundles of hay lie a cannon and its wheels, for around 1665 Holland was in the middle of a bitter war with England. The National Gallery praises the abstract beauty of light on masts, ropes and sails, crowded with incident for the patient eye.
“crowded with incident and activity for the patient eye to find”
The vessels The ferry is probably the wijdschip flying two blue and white flags that suggest Texel; the pont was a flat-bottomed inshore boat also often used as a ferry.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: Jan van de Cappelle, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Spiegel Named ship
View of Amsterdam with Ships on the IJ, with the Spiegel (Vue d'Amsterdam), 1666
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV. 988)
Medium Oil on canvas
This great view of Amsterdam from the IJ was a diplomatic gift. The city commissioned it in 1665 for Hugues de Lionne, Louis XIV's foreign minister, on the advice of the Dutch ambassador Coenraad van Beuningen, at the time of the Franco-Dutch alliance and the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Amsterdam's sea power is glorified by the man-of-war Spiegel, built in 1663, which dominates the water; Bakhuizen even signed and dated the work on her stern. The ship is the city's argument: wealth, fleet and friendship offered to the king of France.
The real ship Spiegel was a large Dutch man-of-war built in 1663; Bakhuizen shows her on the IJ in the year of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch and English East India ships at an Indian port Unnamed
A Dutch Settlement in India, 1670s
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC1933)
Medium Oil on canvas (grisaille)
One of a pair of grisailles in which Bakhuizen imagined a bustling Indian trading port of the Dutch East India Company, works Greenwich calls extremely rare in his output. Dutch and English ships ride at anchor before fortified towers and slender palm trees; on shore an envoy in a buffalo wagon heads for the water, a porter carries a heavy package and a small party rests beside carafes of wine. It has long been called Surat, but Bakhuizen is not known to have gone there, and he probably composed it from prints and drawings. The ships are familiar; the world around them is a Dutch vision of the East.
The vessels Unnamed ships whose flags mark them as both Dutch and English, reflecting the commercial rivalry of the two nations' companies in India.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Eendracht (1653) Named ship
The Eendracht and a Fleet of Dutch Men of War, c. 1670 to 1675
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG223)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Eendracht, one of the most famous ships of the Dutch navy, leads the fleet away from us through choppy, white-tipped waves, gunports open, a picture whose flags, the National Gallery says, were meant to raise feelings of patriotism. A highly decorated barge ploughs towards her carrying an official with ostrich feathers in his hat, a fluyt passes behind, and an inward-bound yacht fires a salute under grey clouds. Yet the painting is also a memorial. It may recall the fleet leaving for the Battle of Lowestoft on 3 June 1665, where the Eendracht blew up and sank with nearly all her crew and the admiral.
“Flags fly high and raise feelings of patriotism with them”
The real ship Built in 1653, the Eendracht ('Union') was the flagship of Lieutenant Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam; at the Battle of Lowestoft on 3 June 1665 she blew up and sank with nearly all her crew, the admiral among them.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Two Dutch East Indiamen and a smalschip Unnamed
A Smalschip with two Dutch East Indiamen coming to Anchor, c. 1670
Artist Hendrick Jacobsz Dubbels (1621 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0917)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two great Dutch East Indiamen, perhaps home from a voyage overseas, come to anchor under a vast rolling sky. One has a carved lion for a figurehead; the other has a pavilion among what may be palm trees painted on her stern, a hint of the exotic trade she served. A smalschip with cream and brown sails crosses under the bows, a man gesturing at the ship, and a sturdy buoy floats in the foreground. The picture was long taken for a Bakhuizen, until cleaning in the 1980s revealed Dubbels's signature on that buoy, restoring the credit to the man who may have been Bakhuizen's teacher.
The vessels Unnamed Dutch East Indiamen flying Dutch flags and a plain red jack. The smalschip, or narrow ship, took its name from its ability to pass through the locks of inland waterways.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Hendrick Jacobsz Dubbels, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch ships riding out a gale behind a breakwater Unnamed
Storm off a Sea Coast (L'Estacade, ou Gros temps sur le bord d'une digue de Hollande), early 1670s
Artist Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1629 to 1682)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV. 1818)
Medium Oil on canvas
Ruisdael's largest seascape shows great waves breaking on a dyke lined with piles, a fisherman's cottage and a few trees on the right, and beyond it the masts of several large vessels, one showing her stern and the Dutch flag. The ships are half-hidden, which makes the storm feel larger. The Louvre places it in the artist's maturity and notes how much the nineteenth century admired its pathos: Turner and Boudin copied it, and Van Gogh called it magnificent. Bought at auction in Amsterdam in 1783 for Louis XVI, it was shown at the opening of the Louvre museum in 1793.
The vessels Unnamed large vessels whose masts rise beyond a piled dyke on the Dutch coast, one showing her stern and a Dutch flag.
Image: Jacob van Ruisdael, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Gouden Leeuw Named ship
The 'Gouden Leeuw' at Sea in Heavy Weather, 1671
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Royal Collection, United Kingdom (RCIN 405324)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Gouden Leeuw, the great Amsterdam warship that would soon carry Cornelis Tromp's flag, is shown twice in one picture, from two points of view, as if the painter wanted to walk around her in a gale. The Royal Collection traces the idea to the ship spotter prints of the time, which the Van de Veldes took further by showing the same ship twice. Painted in 1671, the result is part portrait, part weather: the flagship to be caught working in rough water.
The real ship A ship of the line of 80 to 82 guns built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666, for a time the largest Dutch warship; flagship of Lieutenant Admiral Cornelis Tromp in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, including the Battle of Texel in 1673, and broken up in 1686.
Sources Royal Collection · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
HMS St Andrew Named ship
The 'St Andrew' at Sea in a Moderate Breeze, c. 1673
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3618)
Medium Oil on canvas
Royal Museums Greenwich calls it a closely observed portrait, probably painted the year after Van de Velde came to England. The St Andrew is seen from the port side, abaft the beam, her stern visible, towing a boat full of men on a long line astern, with a blue flag at the fore. Since Sir John Kempthorne flew his blue flag at the fore in her, as vice admiral, at the Battle of the Texel in 1673, he probably commissioned the picture. Van de Velde prepared it with several detailed drawings of the ship, and painted other versions too.
“A closely observed portrait of the ‘St Andrew’, 96 guns.”
The real ship Built at Woolwich Dockyard by Christopher Pett in 1670 as a 96-gun ship, she carried Vice Admiral Sir John Kempthorne's flag at the Battle of the Texel in 1673 and was rebuilt as the 100-gun Royal Anne in 1704.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Three ships in a gale Unnamed
Three Ships in a Gale, 1673
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG981)
Medium Oil on canvas
Three merchant ships show three stages of peril. The nearest, a man-of-war, ploughs into a breaking wave caught in a sudden shaft of sunlight; the second has lost two masts and snapped her bowsprit while her crew battles to secure a yard lying across the foredeck; the third has let her mainsails fly and they will soon be shredded. All have taken down their sails to drift before the gale. Painted in 1673, just after Van de Velde moved from Amsterdam to England, it shows how he could still sell Dutch ships to London buyers while the two nations fought at sea.
“drifting at the mercy of the gale and the surging sea”
The vessels Unnamed ships. The red pennants at the mastheads of the nearest are probably the flag of Flushing, and the tattered Dutch flag at the fore of the ship behind suggests she carries the vice admiral of a merchant fleet.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Portsmouth (royal yacht, 1674) Named ship
The English Yacht 'Portsmouth' at Anchor, 1675
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3556)
Medium Oil on panel
Oil paintings by the elder Van de Velde are rare; he spent his life drawing ships and making pen paintings, and was among the first artists to follow fleets into action. Here he paints the yacht Portsmouth at anchor in a calm, her deck crowded with people, a two-decker behind firing a salute half-hidden in its own smoke. His son may have added the sails. Signed and dated 1675, it is the third of the surviving panels made for the cabin of Charles II's yacht Charlotte, a family set for a royal patron.
The real ship An 8-gun yacht built at Woolwich by Sir Phineas Pett in 1674 and named after the Duchess of Portsmouth, Louise de Keroualle, one of Charles II's mistresses.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Charles Galley Named ship
The 'Charles Galley' before a Light Breeze, 1677
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3254)
Medium Oil on panel
A galley frigate painted for a royal cabin. The Charles Galley tows an admiral's barge full of men in a light breeze, a two-decker under sail behind her. She was one of two galley frigates built in 1676 for service in the Mediterranean against the North African corsairs, and Greenwich identifies her from a detailed Van de Velde drawing in its collection. Signed and dated 1677, the panel belongs to the set made to decorate the cabin of Charles II's new yacht Charlotte, and it survived to be given to Greenwich Hospital in 1791.
The real ship One of two galley frigates built in 1676 for Mediterranean service against the Barbary corsairs, armed with 32 guns and classed as a fourth-rate until 1691.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Drawing
Mary (royal yacht, 1677) Named ship
Portrait of the 'Mary', c. 1677
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (PAH1863)
Medium Offset and pencil on paper
This is a working drawing from the Van de Velde studio: the royal yacht Mary seen from the starboard quarter, seven wreathed ports along her side, three of them with guns, and an oval shield on her stern bearing a foul anchor supported by the lion and the unicorn. Willem the Younger inscribed it in brown ink, d Maeri. It is an offset, taken from the same original as another sheet at Greenwich, and was probably made for pictures of the journey of William of Orange and Princess Mary to Holland in 1677. A yacht drawn not for display but so that she could be painted true.
The real ship An 8-gun English royal yacht built in 1677 and rebuilt in 1727.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
HMS Woolwich (1675) Named ship
The Woolwich before a Light Breeze, c. 1677
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3732)
Medium Oil on panel
This panel was painted to hang aboard a royal yacht. It is one of three surviving pictures painted by the Van de Veldes for the cabin of the Charlotte, built at Portsmouth for Charles II in 1677, a set of ship portraits to decorate the yacht itself. The Woolwich has just made sail and is hoisting in her port bower anchor, while a smaller warship under her stern fires a salute. After the Charlotte was broken up, Admiral of the Fleet John Forbes presumably acquired the panels, and in 1791 he gave them to Greenwich Hospital so that they would be kept in naval hands.
The real ship A 54-gun fourth-rate built by Phineas Pett III at Woolwich Dockyard and launched in 1675; rebuilt in 1702, taken to pieces at Deptford in 1736 and rebuilt as a 50-gun fourth-rate, relaunched in 1741 and finally broken up at Woolwich in 1747.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Royal James Named ship
Calm: the Royal James, a Royal Yacht and Other Shipping, 1678
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3608)
Medium Oil on canvas
An oil by the elder Van de Velde, dated 1678, when father and son were working in England for Charles II. A three-decker, first identified as the Royal Prince and now thought to be the Royal James, lies at anchor with the blue flag of an admiral of the blue at the main, while a royal yacht with an extra-long pendant, perhaps the Cleveland, rides in the foreground and a two-decker fires a forward gun. In the distance may be the James Galley of 1676. Three porpoises swim past in the foreground, a favourite device of Dutch marine painters. Van de Velde may have drawn the ship at Solebay in 1672.
The real ship The Royal James was a first-rate three-decker of Charles II's navy; Greenwich suggests Van de Velde may have seen her at the Battle of Solebay on 28 May 1672. The picture was earlier identified as the Royal Prince.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
HMS Resolution (1667) Named ship
The 'Resolution' in a Gale, c. 1678
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3582)
Medium Oil on canvas
This is a storm remembered by an admiral. The Resolution, close-hauled on the port tack with topsails furled, fights through a gale flying the Union flag at the main, the mark of Sir Thomas Allin as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean in 1668 to 1670. Greenwich thinks Allin commissioned it, perhaps recalling a storm of 14 December 1669 that he described in his journal. Van de Velde worked it up from several drawings of the ship, and the result joins portrait accuracy to the new drama of the storm pictures he painted in England.
The real ship One of the first 70-gun two-deckers, built at Harwich in 1667 and rebuilt in 1698. She was Sir Thomas Allin's flagship in 1668 to 1670 while his fleet protected English merchant shipping against Barbary corsairs.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch man-of-war firing a gun Unnamed
The Cannon Shot (Het kanonschot), c. 1680
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-C-244)
Medium Oil on canvas
Nothing happens in this picture except one gun, and that is the point. A Dutch warship lies in a calm with her sails hanging loose, and the smoke of a single shot rolls out across the still water. Two sloops float on either side of her; another warship, sails lowered, lies in the distance. Van de Velde turns a routine moment into a meditation on stillness, so that the report of the cannon seems to hang in the air. He painted it in England, the Rijksmuseum notes, as the companion of The Gust: calm set against storm.
“A Dutch warship in a calm, with its sails loosed, fires a cannon shot.”
The vessels An unnamed Dutch man-of-war of the later seventeenth century, shown in a calm with two sloops alongside.
Sources Rijksmuseum
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
English merchant vessel and English man-of-war in a gale Unnamed
An English Vessel and a Man of War in a Rough Sea off a Coast with Tall Cliffs, probably 1680s
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG819)
Medium Oil on canvas
A gale blows in from the sea and drives an English vessel, St George's cross at the main, towards high cliffs. Her sails belly out, the helmsman hunches over the wheel, and a fitful streak of sunlight turns a white sail a sickly yellow, while an English man-of-war with cannon ready rides out the storm nearby. Bakhuizen, who began as a calligrapher, made his name with exactly this: the dangers sailors faced, painted for people on land whose safety and prosperity depended on ships coming home.
“an English man-of-war (or battleship), cannon at the ready, rides out the gale”
The vessels Unnamed English ships: a vessel flying the English flag at the stern and St George's cross at the main, and an English man-of-war.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
English 70-gun warship in a squall Unnamed
A Ship on the High Seas Caught by a Squall, known as 'The Gust' (De windstoot), c. 1680
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1848)
Medium Oil on canvas
Van de Velde and his father, also a marine painter, entered the service of the English court in 1672, and he painted The Gust in England as the storm half of a pair. A large British warship of 70 guns is in distress: a fierce gust of wind has broken one of her masts and a sail has come loose, while a smaller ship labours on the left. Where The Cannon Shot is all silence, here everything strains, canvas, rigging and hull heeling together on a high wave. The painter of calms shows he can render the sea's violence with the same exactness.
“This large, 70-gun British warship is in distress.”
The vessels The Rijksmuseum identifies the ship as a large 70-gun British warship; the individual ship is not named.
Sources Rijksmuseum
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch man-of-war with Mediterranean galleys Unnamed
Dutch Men of War entering a Mediterranean Port, 1681
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG1050)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dutch power far from home, or so Bakhuizen would have his audience believe. A man-of-war with the arms of Amsterdam on her stern lies at anchor, gunports open, only one sail furled, while slender galleys, the rowing ships of the Mediterranean since Roman times, set the scene in the south; the nearest, not a Dutch vessel, flies the Dutch flag. As far as we know Bakhuizen never went south, and the National Gallery reads the setting as imaginary and the picture as propaganda for Dutch commerce and sea power. Yet the sea itself is real, with depth and power, and, in the Gallery's words, you can almost feel the wind and the spray.
“You can almost feel the wind and the spray, hear the slap of the rigging and the flap of the flags.”
The vessels Unnamed: a Dutch man-of-war with the arms of Amsterdam on her stern, other Dutch naval and merchant craft approaching the port, and Mediterranean galleys.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch man-of-war, boeier yacht and wijdschip off Enkhuizen Unnamed
Dutch Men of War and Small Vessels in a Fresh Breeze off Enkhuizen, 1683
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG204)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the Zuiderzee off Enkhuizen, towering storm clouds threaten boats fighting choppy waves. A man-of-war with the arms of Amsterdam sails away from us, part of her mainmast gone, while a boeier yacht with the same arms pitches on the wash, and the port's sea walls and slender Zuiderkerk tower, a beacon to travellers, show through mist and spray. Bakhuizen catches the white wave tops in a watery ray of sunlight. Then comes the detail everyone remembers: on a humble wijdschip carrying passengers, an old woman eats her soup a few feet above the water, splashed by waves and entirely unconcerned.
“An old woman eats her soup only a few feet above the water”
The vessels Unnamed: a Dutch man-of-war and a boeier yacht, both with the arms of Amsterdam as official craft of the city, and a wijdschip, a wide passenger and cargo vessel of the Zuiderzee.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Gouden Leeuw Named ship
The Gouden Leeuw on the IJ before Amsterdam (De Gouden Leeuw op het IJ voor Amsterdam), 1686
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Amsterdam Museum (SA 7421)
Medium Oil on canvas
This is a farewell. In 1686 the Gouden Leeuw, flagship of the Admiralty of Amsterdam, comes home to the IJ for the last time, thanked for twenty years of service, her billowing sails lit by late-afternoon light. On the left a states yacht fires a salute, while in front a yacht of the city of Amsterdam sails towards her. Behind lies the skyline of the eastern part of the harbour. She had carried Lieutenant Admiral Cornelis Tromp at the Battle of the Texel in 1673; after this tribute she was broken up. Van de Velde signed and dated the huge canvas on a piece of driftwood.
The real ship Built in 1666 for the Admiralty of Amsterdam and for a time the largest Dutch warship, about 50 metres long with 80 to 82 guns. She was Lieutenant Admiral Cornelis Tromp's flagship in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, including the Battle of the Texel in 1673, and was broken up in 1686.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · historiek.net · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
States yacht with the arms of Holland, a boeier yacht and a tjalk Unnamed
A River View, c. 1690 to 1700
Artist Abraham Storck (1644 to 1708)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG146)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dawn breaks behind the sails of a man-of-war and there is hardly a ripple on the river. In the foreground Storck sets out Dutch craft with detailed accuracy: a boeier yacht, a tjalk with a Dutch flag crowded with men in black cocked hats, and a states yacht with the arms of Holland and a silver lamp on her stern. The banks are busy with fishermen and onlookers, windmills and spires, and one church looks like St Lawrence in Rotterdam. But the land is largely imaginary, and the glowing sky, the National Gallery notes, seems more Mediterranean than Dutch: an idealised, romantic vision of life on a Dutch river.
“The soft glow of the sky seems more Mediterranean than Northern European”
The vessels Unnamed. The boeier yacht was an inshore vessel with a leeboard, the tjalk a heavy barge, and the statenjacht an official vessel carrying members of the States General and important foreign visitors.
Sources National Gallery
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch warships in the Strait of Gibraltar, 1694 Unnamed
Warships in a Heavy Storm, c. 1695
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-4856)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dark storm clouds gather and five ships are caught close under the coast; the second from the left has only her foremast standing, and wreckage drifts in the waves. The last sunlight breaking between the grey clouds makes the violence of nature felt. The Rijksmuseum links the picture to the storm that struck some thirty Dutch warships escorting a merchant fleet in the Strait of Gibraltar in early 1694, and it was once titled after the Hollandia and the Ridderschap, yet its Dutch catalogue note doubts that it records a real event. It speaks of the unpredictable elements and human frailty. Bakhuizen is said to have gone out on the water in bad weather to study sky and sea.
The vessels In early 1694 some thirty Dutch warships sailing to protect a merchant fleet from French attack met a heavy storm in the Strait of Gibraltar; several sank or were badly damaged, among them the Hollandia.
Sources Rijksmuseum · wga.hu
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
Dutch-built man-of-war under a Jerusalem cross flag, with feluccas and a galley Unnamed
Italianate Harbour View with a Fantasy Building and Man of War, 1697
Artist Abraham Storck (1644 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0929)
Medium Oil on canvas
A dream of the south painted by a man with no known journey there. A Dutch-built warship flying the Jerusalem cross and a red ensign with a golden lion, perhaps alluding to a Venetian ship, lies off a quay crowded with merchants in eastern dress, bales, an obelisk and a fountain, while feluccas wait at the foot of a palace stair crowned with Rome's horse tamers, Castor and Pollux. Storck probably worked from prints, and he even set the lantern of Amsterdam's town hall on the palazzo roof. Such inventions, Greenwich notes, anticipated the Italian capriccio of the next century.
The vessels An invented scene. The warship is built in the Dutch style; the small feluccas beside the quay were used at the time to carry passengers between harbour towns in Italy and France.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Dutch Golden Age · Painting
HMS Royal Sovereign (1701) Named ship
The English Ship 'Royal Sovereign' with a Royal Yacht in a Light Air, 1703
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3614)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted four years before his death, this is the old master's portrait of what was regarded as the greatest ship in the world. The Royal Sovereign lies at anchor firing a salute to port, the Royal Standard at the main, recognisable by the great horse and rider carved on her taffrail. Boats and barges ply around her stern, a fishing pink lies in the foreground, and a ketch-rigged royal yacht, probably the Isabella, rides on the right. Greenwich suggests the scene may be Spithead on 4 June 1702, when Prince George of Denmark dined aboard. The picture later belonged to H. A. J. Munro of Novar, patron and friend of Turner.
“She was regarded as the greatest ship in the world and her decorations were elaborately carved”
The real ship A 100-gun first-rate built by Fisher Harding at Woolwich Dockyard in 1701. Her carving was so costly that the Admiralty afterwards severely restricted decoration on its ships.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
HMS Association, with Eagle, Romney and Firebrand Named ship
Sir Cloudesly Shovel in the Association with the Eagle, Rumney and the Firebrand, Lost on the Rocks of Scilly, October 22, 1707, c. 1710
Artist Unknown engraver
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH0710)
Medium Engraving and etching
This modest print is the only contemporary illustration of one of the worst disasters in the history of the Royal Navy. Returning from the Mediterranean in autumn 1707, Sir Cloudesley Shovell's squadron had been unable to take navigational sights for days and believed itself further south than it was. On the night of 22 October his flagship Association, shown here flying the royal standard in the left foreground, ran onto the Gilstone Ledges of Scilly and rapidly sank; the Eagle, Firebrand and Romney struck nearby. Over 1,300 men were lost, Shovell among them, and his body was later buried in Westminster Abbey.
“the only contemporary illustration of the disaster”
The real ship HMS Association, a 90-gun second-rate launched at Portsmouth in 1697, was Shovell's flagship in the Mediterranean, at the capture of Gibraltar in 1704 and at Toulon in 1707. She struck the Gilstone Ledges off Scilly on the night of 22 October 1707 and sank; only 26 men from the lost ships were reported to have survived.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
East Indiamen in a storm Unnamed
East Indiamen Driven Ashore in a Storm, 18th century
Artist Charles Brooking (c. 1723 to 1759)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1026)
Medium Oil on canvas
Most of Brooking's surviving paintings date from the last six years of his short career, and by 1755 his reputation as a marine painter was well established. Here, from a low viewpoint, East Indiamen ride out huge dark waves in the middle ground while lightning streaks between the clouds and a castle stands on the cliffs to the right. The debt to Willem van de Velde the Younger and Simon de Vlieger is clear, yet the museum finds his approach mostly his own and praises his careful detail. A storm like this satisfied the eighteenth-century appetite for the sublime.
“an informed knowledge of maritime practice and naval architecture”
The vessels Unnamed ships of the East India Company; the painting does not record a particular wreck.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Charles Brooking, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Two royal yachts Unnamed
Royal Yachts in a Storm, 18th century
Artist Charles Brooking (c. 1723 to 1759)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1024)
Medium Oil on canvas
Even the sovereign's yachts are at the mercy of the weather here. Brooking sets two royal yachts among other vessels riding out a storm, seen from a low viewpoint, with rays of lightning between the clouds and a dramatic light falling on water and sails. The museum sees a strong resemblance to Van de Velde's storms and the influence of De Vlieger, yet judges his approach mostly individual, and notes his careful attention to detail. By 1755 his reputation as a marine painter was well established, and this small canvas shows why: the drama never obscures his understanding of ships.
“His careful attention to detail demonstrates an informed knowledge of maritime practice and naval architecture.”
The vessels Two unnamed royal yachts; the individual vessels are not identified.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Charles Brooking, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Merchant ship wrecked on a rocky coast Unnamed
A Storm and a Shipwreck (Tempête et naufrage d'un vaisseau), 1754
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Wallace Collection, London (P135)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned by the Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour, and painted while Vernet was living in Marseille between 1753 and 1754, this storm was shown at the Salon of 1755. A ship breaks up on a rugged coast in a fierce storm, and the scene carries the theme the Wallace Collection sees at the heart of Vernet's wrecks: human helplessness before nature. Marigny ordered a calm pendant to answer it, for Vernet liked to set storm against serenity. The Marquess of Hertford acquired it in 1869.
“one of Vernet's masterworks after his move from Rome to France”
The vessels An unnamed sailing ship on a rocky coast; no particular vessel or wreck is identified.
Sources wallacelive.wallacecollection.org · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Maltese brigantine driven ashore at Sète Unnamed
View of the Port of Sète (Vue du port de Cette, en Languedoc), 1757
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (on deposit at the Musée national de la Marine, Paris since 1943)
Medium Oil on canvas
Vernet painted Sète from the sea under a stormy sky that fills two thirds of the canvas, dark clouds broken by patches of blue that reveal the town and port in golden light. In the foreground two vessels face the weather. The one on the left has passed the jetty; the other, a Maltese brigantine, is caught by the wind and is going aground on the sand. Vernet details the crew's work: a group lowering the mainsail, two at the helm, one watching at the bow, all apparently directed by a man with a speaking trumpet. The canvas was shown at the Salon of 1757.
The vessels A brigantine from Malta, a two-masted merchant vessel, shown running aground outside the port of Sète.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Ship wrecked in a lightning storm Unnamed
The Shipwreck, 1772
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
Signed and dated 1772, and commissioned by Lord Arundell of Wardour for Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, this canvas was meant to stir the sublime, that mix of terror, awe and delight. A ship is being wrecked on a rocky coast, and crew and passengers try to save themselves by climbing down a rope from the mast to the shore. Wind, waves and a jagged bolt of lightning dwarf them. Vernet gave it a partner, Moonlight, and half a century later his grandson Horace borrowed from it for his homage to the old painter tied to a mast.
“The small, frantic figures are overwhelmed by the violence of nature”
The vessels An unnamed sailing ship on a rocky coast; no particular vessel or wreck is identified.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Two ships in a storm and the remains of a third wrecked on the rocks Unnamed
A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas (Tempête), 1773
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG6601)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned on behalf of the King of Poland, then sold by Vernet to Clive of India in 1773, this storm was painted as Tempête, the partner of a calm scene now called A Landscape at Sunset. Two ships roll in a giant swell with sails tied down or torn, lightning streaks from the clouds, and the remains of a third lie shattered on the rocks. On the shore figures carry salvaged goods, and friends despair over an unconscious woman. Yet further down the coast the clouds break and sunlight returns, and that promise of calm gives the tempest its meaning.
“the only great pair of marine views by Vernet in a British public collection”
The vessels Unnamed sailing ships; the painting depicts an imagined storm on a rocky coast rather than a recorded wreck.
Sources National Gallery
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Ship's boat in Havana harbour Unnamed
Watson and the Shark, 1778
Artist John Singleton Copley (1738 to 1815)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington; full-size replica at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; smaller version at the Detroit Institute of Arts
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1749 Brook Watson, a fourteen-year-old cabin boy, was attacked by a shark in the harbour of Havana; he lost his right leg below the knee and was only rescued at the third attempt, the moment Copley chose to paint. Watson himself commissioned the picture a quarter of a century later, and it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1778. The small boat is the whole stage: the boy in the water, the shark closing, the crew leaning out to reach him. Watson went on to become Lord Mayor of London, and left the painting to Christ's Hospital as a lesson to youth.
“Horror and panic grip Watson, who has already lost part of his right leg to the shark.”
The vessels An open boat from a ship lying in Havana harbour, where Watson was serving as a cabin boy. Such boats carried men and stores between ship and shore.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Image: John Singleton Copley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
HMS Gloucester Named ship
The Wreck of the Gloucester off Yarmouth, 6 May 1682, late 18th century
Artist Attributed to Monamy Swaine
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection (BHC3370)
Medium Oil on panel
The Gloucester was carrying James, Duke of York, the future James II, to Leith when she ran aground on the Lemon and Oar sandbank off Yarmouth with the loss of a hundred and thirty lives. The painting shows her listing to port, sails and rigging flapping in the wind and her stern lashed by huge waves, while figures pour off her side onto dry land and a boat full of passengers pulls away from her bows. The naval historian W. Laird Clowes suggested the wreck might have been a deliberate attempt on the Duke's life. The ship itself may derive from a picture by Van de Velde.
The real ship Built under contract by the shipwright Matthew Graves at Limehouse and launched in 1654 for the Commonwealth navy, the Gloucester passed to the Royal Navy at the Restoration. She was wrecked off Great Yarmouth on 6 May 1682 while carrying the Duke of York to Scotland.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Attributed to Monamy Swaine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Grosvenor (East Indiaman) Named ship
The Wreck of the Grosvenor 1782
Artist George Carter (1737 to 1794)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH8397)
Medium Gouache
Carter shows the homeward-bound Indiaman already broken in two on the reef, only her head and stern above water, while desperate sailors cling to a rope strung from her stern to a rocky promontory and the ensign still whips in the wind. The loss gripped Britain because the wreck was only the beginning: 123 of the 138 aboard reached land, but only 19 survived the barren country and the hostile encounters that followed. Jagged clouds and a turbulent sea make this the moment before that long ordeal, when reaching the shore still looked like rescue.
The real ship The Grosvenor, a three-masted East Indiaman of 729 tons under Captain John Coxon, sailed for England from Trincomalee in June 1782 and was wrecked on a reef on the Pondoland coast of South Africa on 4 August 1782. Most of the survivors set out to walk to the Cape, a distance far greater than Coxon believed, and very few reached it.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
Grosvenor (East Indiaman) Named ship
The Grosvenor East Indiaman, Capt Coxon commander, wrecked Augst 4th 1782, 1784
Artist Robert Smirke (1753 to 1845), engraved by Robert Pollard and Francis Jukes
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH8443)
Medium Aquatint and etching
Published on 8 March 1784, less than two years after the wreck, this large aquatint after Robert Smirke carried the Grosvenor's loss into British homes. Its long title reads like a headline, naming the ship, her commander Captain Coxon, the date and the African coast where she struck, so that the print serves as news as much as art. The disaster lay in what followed: 123 people reached land, but only a handful survived the attempt to walk to safety. Here the ship is remembered at the moment she was lost, before that long ordeal began.
The real ship The Grosvenor, a three-masted East Indiaman of 729 tons under Captain John Coxon, was wrecked on the Pondoland coast of South Africa on 4 August 1782 on her homeward voyage from India; most of the survivors died attempting to walk to the Cape.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
Halsewell (East Indiaman) Named ship
The wreck of the Halsewell, c. 1786
Artist Thomas Stothard (1755 to 1834), engraved by Edmund Scott
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH0504)
Medium Mezzotint, coloured
Stothard takes us below decks, into the roundhouse, the passenger saloon under the poop of the stranded Indiaman, in the early hours of 6 January 1786. Captain Richard Pierce sits between his two daughters, comforting them, while the second and third mates, Henry Meriton and John Rogers, stand on the point of leaving. The scene came from the narrative those two officers published fifteen days after the wreck, and Meriton advised the artist directly. None of the women aboard escaped, and Pierce stayed with them. It is a shipwreck without a wave in sight, and all the more affecting for it.
The real ship The Halsewell, an East Indiaman launched in 1778, was outward bound when a storm drove her ashore at 2 am on 6 January 1786 against the cliffs at Seacombe in Dorset; she disintegrated within two hours and about 170 people were lost, among them the captain and all the women aboard.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Stothard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
HMS Guardian Named ship
The Guardian frigate, commanded by Lieutenant Riou, surrounded by Islands of Ice in the South Seas, on which she struck, 24th December 1789, in her passage to Botany Bay, with the departure of the Crew in the Jolly Boat, 1790
Artist Carington Bowles (publisher)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF7976)
Medium Mezzotint
The Guardian was carrying stores, livestock, plants and convicts to the struggling new colony at Botany Bay when, on Christmas Eve 1789, she closed an iceberg to take on fresh water and struck a submerged spur of ice that tore away her rudder and part of her keel. Most of her people took to the boats, but Lieutenant Edward Riou stayed with the sinking ship and by the following February had brought her to Table Bay. The mezzotint shows the jolly boat leaving: a sailor with an axe ready to cut her free, another at prayer, icicles hanging from the rigging and ice poised above the deck.
“I have determined to remain in the ship, and shall endeavour to make my presence useful”
The real ship A 44-gun Roebuck-class two-decker fifth-rate built by Robert Batson at Limehouse and launched on 23 March 1784, the Guardian was fitted out in 1789 as a store ship and convict transport for New South Wales. After the iceberg collision Riou brought her waterlogged into Table Bay; a gale on 12 April 1790 drove her ashore, and the wreck was sold in 1791.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Carington Bowles, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
HMS Ramillies Named ship
Loss of HMS Ramillies, September 1782: on her beam ends, late 18th to early 19th century
Artist Robert Dodd (1748 to 1815)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2213)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dodd told the loss of the Ramillies in more than one canvas; this one shows the ship on her beam ends, and a companion, dated 1785, shows her crew taking to the boats. She was sailing with Admiral Thomas Graves's fleet from Jamaica towards England when the great hurricane of September 1782 caught it off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Several warships foundered in that storm; the Ramillies was abandoned and scuttled. Lying over on her side in a mountainous sea, she becomes an image of how quickly a ship of the line could be made helpless.
The real ship A 74-gun third-rate built at Chatham Dockyard and launched on 15 April 1763, the Ramillies served in the American War of Independence, chiefly escorting convoys. Caught by the Central Atlantic hurricane of September 1782 while sailing with Graves's fleet, she was abandoned and scuttled on 21 September 1782.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
A troop transport, linked with the loss of HMS Minotaur Unnamed
The Wreck of a Transport Ship, 1810
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon
Medium Oil on canvas
A ship lies overwhelmed at the height of a fearsome storm while boats try to pick up survivors around her. Turner had been making preparatory sketches before any single disaster, so the picture was not conceived as a portrait of one wreck, but the loss of HMS Minotaur off the Dutch coast with heavy loss of life in 1810 gave it a terrible topicality. Storms and wrecks were a recurring Romantic theme, and Turner returned to them in Calais Pier, The Shipwreck and later The Slave Ship. The canvas has been in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon since 1920.
The vessels HMS Minotaur, a 74-gun third-rate launched at Woolwich on 6 November 1793, fought at the Nile, Trafalgar and Copenhagen before she was wrecked, with heavy loss of life, in December 1810.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
HMS St George and HMS Defence Named ship
A View of the Shipwreck and Total Loss of the St George and the Defence in the North Sea (with key), 1812
Artist George Thompson
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH0746)
Medium Etching, hand-coloured
Published on 4 March 1812, barely ten weeks after the event, this hand-coloured etching with its key told Britain how two ships of the line had been lost on the coast of Jutland. Escorting a Baltic convoy home, the storm damaged St George, which had carried Nelson's flag to Copenhagen, took the ground on the outermost sandbar near Thorsminde at six in the morning on Christmas Eve 1811, some 500 metres from land, and the Defence was wrecked close by. Over the following fortnight nearly 1,400 drowned men washed up on the beach, among them Rear Admiral Reynolds; the dunes where they were buried are still called Dead Men's Dunes.
The real ship HMS St George, a 98-gun second-rate launched at Portsmouth on 14 October 1785, carried Nelson's flag at Copenhagen in 1801 until he shifted to the Elephant. Returning from the Baltic as flagship of Rear Admiral Reynolds, she grounded near Thorsminde on 24 December 1811; HMS Defence was lost close by, and almost all the men of both ships died.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: George Thompson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Drawing
Halsewell (East Indiaman) Named ship
The Loss of an East Indiaman, c. 1818
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it The Higgins, Bedford
Medium Watercolour
Painted for Turner's close friend and patron Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall, and exhibited at Fawkes's London home in April 1819, this watercolour is thought by Eric Shanes to show the Halsewell, lost off Dorset in January 1786, a wreck Turner referred to in a manuscript poem from his 1811 West Country tour. Instead of a panorama of sea, the rolling deck fills the frame with scores of clinging and scrambling figures, so that the storm is felt through the people aboard. Andrew Wilton counted it among Turner's most interesting experiments in portraying the horror of a sea storm.
“it concentrates on the plight of the ship's crew almost to the exclusion of the sea itself”
The real ship The Halsewell was an East Indiaman launched in 1778, recorded as 758 tons burthen. Bound for Bengal, she was driven onto the rocks below a cliff near Seacombe on the Isle of Purbeck in a snowstorm on 6 January 1786 and dashed to pieces in less than an hour; there were only 74 survivors.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Higgins, Bedford, where the original is kept. Photo: M J Richardson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Raft of the frigate Méduse, with a rescue ship on the horizon Named ship
The Raft of the Medusa (Le Radeau de la Méduse), 1818 to 1819
Artist Théodore Géricault (1791 to 1824)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 4884)
Medium Oil on canvas
The ship itself is gone: what Géricault gives us is the raft built after the wreck of the frigate Méduse, and on the horizon the ship that will rescue the last survivors. He interviewed two survivors and built a scale model of the raft, and he built the composition as a pyramid, from the dead in the foreground to the central figure waving desperately at the distant sail. Shown at the Salon of 1819 as Shipwreck Scene, it caused passionate praise and condemnation, turned a naval scandal into a national reckoning, and was acquired by the Louvre soon after the artist's death.
The real ship The Méduse was a 40-gun Pallas-class frigate launched in 1810. Armed en flûte to carry French officials to Senegal, she ran aground off the coast of present-day Mauritania on 2 July 1816; on 5 July at least 150 people were set adrift on a raft, and all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue.
Image: Théodore Géricault, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Drawing
Raft of the Méduse and the rescuers of the brig Argus Named ship
The Rescue of the Survivors of the Raft of the Medusa, c. 1818
Artist Théodore Géricault (1791 to 1824)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1973.721)
Medium Pen and brown ink over traces of graphite on tan wove paper
Géricault struggled to choose a single moment for his great painting. Among the scenes he considered were the mutiny, the cannibalism and, as in this pen drawing, the rescue itself. In the end he painted something harder to bear: the survivors sighting the Argus on the horizon as she sails past without seeing them. This sheet, once owned by the collector Pierre Dubaut, lets us see the road not taken, and how much the finished canvas gains by leaving rescue out of reach.
“From the delirium of joy, we fell into profound despondency and grief.”
The real ship The Méduse, a French frigate, ran aground on the Bank of Arguin in July 1816. Her raft drifted for thirteen days until the brig Argus found it on 17 July with only fifteen men still alive.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Image: Théodore Géricault, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
Raft of the frigate Méduse Named ship
Shipwreck of the Frigate Medusa. Revolt of Some of the Crew on the Raft, 1818
Artist Hippolyte Lecomte (1781 to 1857), printed by Comte Charles-Philibert de Lasteyrie
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1961.355)
Medium Lithograph in black on cream wove paper
Before Géricault's canvas there were prints. This lithograph, printed in 1818 by the Comte de Lasteyrie, takes as its subject the revolt of part of the crew on the raft, the darkest episode of an ordeal that lasted thirteen days. It appeared while the scandal of the Méduse was still raw in France, the year before Géricault showed his great painting at the Salon of 1819. Where Géricault would choose the moment of hope, the sighting of the rescue ship, this print dwells on the moment when the men on the raft turned on one another.
The real ship The Méduse, a 40-gun Pallas-class frigate launched at Paimboeuf in 1810, ran aground on the Bank of Arguin off West Africa in July 1816. At least 146 men and one woman were put on a hastily built raft; after thirteen days of mutiny, starvation and killing, the brig Argus found it on 17 July with only 15 men still alive.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Image: Hippolyte Lecomte, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Dutton (East Indiaman) Named ship
The Wreck of the East Indiaman Dutton in Plymouth Sound, 26 January 1796, 1821
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3298)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Dutton, carrying troops for the West Indies, was wrecked in Plymouth Sound in a gale, and it was Sir Edward Pellew, a powerful man, who swam out with a line so that breeches buoys could be rigged; all but four of the 600 aboard were saved. Luny, following a print by Nicholas Pocock, shows the dismasted ship close inshore, rescue lines held taut by an organised crowd, figures in transit along them, and an officer in blue on the poop who is probably Pellew himself. Signed and dated 1821, this large version was sold in 1834 to Pellew's son Fleetwood.
The real ship Built on the Thames in 1781 and chartered by the East India Company, the Dutton was carrying troops to the West Indies when she was wrecked in Plymouth Sound in a gale on 26 January 1796; all but four of the 600 aboard were saved.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Wrecked ship in the Arctic ice Unnamed
The Sea of Ice (Das Eismeer), 1823 to 1824
Artist Caspar David Friedrich (1774 to 1840)
Where to see it Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Friedrich piles slabs of ice into a great jagged altar, and only slowly do we notice the wrecked ship half-buried on the right. He probably knew of William Edward Parry's expedition of 1819 to 1820 in search of the North-West Passage, and in the winter of 1820 to 1821 he made oil studies of ice floes on the Elbe near Dresden. The picture was met with incomprehension, was still unsold when he died, and was at times confused with his lost Wreck of Hope. Today it is counted among his masterpieces. The ship is tiny, almost an afterthought, and that is the terror of it.
“He has understood completely how to represent in landscape the great struggles of nature.”
The vessels The ship is unnamed. Friedrich is thought to have drawn on accounts of Parry's 1819 to 1820 Arctic expedition, which sailed in search of the North-West Passage.
Image: Caspar David Friedrich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Kent (East Indiaman) Named ship
Loss of the East Indiaman Kent, 1 March 1825: catching fire, 1826
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2272)
Medium Oil on canvas
One of a pair of paintings by Luny of the same disaster, signed and dated 1826, this canvas shows the moment the Kent caught fire. She was on her third voyage to Bengal and China, carrying some 700 people, mainly soldiers of the 31st Regiment and their families, when after two days of storms in the Bay of Biscay a naked light in the hold, reportedly carried by men trying to steal liquor, set her alight. The crew flooded the hold, then had to shut the ports again for fear she would sink. Rescue came only when a sailor aloft sighted another vessel.
“a number of those saved from the ‘Kent’ perished during the journey, including a substantial number of children.”
The real ship The Kent, owned by Stewart Marjoribanks and in East India Company service from 1820, made two voyages for the Company before her loss. Commanded by Henry Cobb, she caught fire on 1 March 1825; boats ferried most of her people to the brig Cambrian, bound for Vera Cruz, which carried them to Falmouth.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Musée national de la Marine
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Kent (East Indiaman) Named ship
The Burning of the Kent (Incendie du Kent, 1825), 1828
Artist Théodore Gudin (1802 to 1880)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 34 D, deposit of the Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
Gudin was only twenty-six when this huge canvas, more than four metres wide, won him immediate success at the Salon of 1828. The Kent, carrying more than 650 people, about a hundred of them women and children, is ablaze in a Bay of Biscay gale, the fire threatening her powder room, while the English brig Cambria, drawn by her distress flag, tries to take off her people. Smoke merges with storm cloud, the waves are laid on so thickly they seem almost transparent, and the survivors crowd the foreground in panic. The museum calls it a frightful spectacle.
“un spectacle effroyable”
The real ship The Kent entered East India Company service in 1820 and, under Captain Henry Cobb, sailed in February 1825 for Bengal and China with some 700 people aboard, mainly soldiers of the 31st Regiment and their families. She caught fire in the Bay of Biscay after two days of storms; most of those aboard were ferried by boat to the brig Cambrian (Cambria in French sources), which landed them at Falmouth.
Sources Musée national de la Marine · Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Julia and Colombus Named ship
An Act of Devotion by Captain Desse of Bordeaux towards the Colombus, a Dutch Ship (Trait de dévouement du capitaine Desse, de Bordeaux, envers Le Colombus, navire hollandais), 1829
Artist Théodore Gudin (1802 to 1880)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux
Medium Oil on canvas
In July 1822 the Dutch ship Colombus, bound from Batavia to Amsterdam with coffee, sugar and a detachment of soldiers, was dismasted and left rudderless by a gale on the Agulhas Bank. On 23 July the Bordeaux brig Julia found her. Though damaged herself, Captain Pierre Desse stood by for days, speaking to the wreck through a speaking trumpet and keeping in touch by her lights at night, until on 28 July he could take all 92 people aboard his small brig. Gudin's canvas was commissioned in 1828, shown at the Salon of 1831 and has hung in the Bordeaux museum since 1832.
“Je ne vous abandonnerai pas !”
The real ship The Colombus was a Dutch square-rigged three-master of 800 tonneaux owned by Devries and Co. of Amsterdam, sailing from Batavia on 19 May 1822 under Captain Grevelink; she was abandoned with her cargo after the rescue. The Julia was a French brig of 200 tonneaux from Bordeaux commanded by Pierre Desse.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Stranded vessel, lifeboat and Manby rescue party Unnamed
Life-Boat and Manby Apparatus Going Off to a Stranded Vessel Making Signal (Blue Lights) of Distress, c. 1831
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (FA.211)
Medium Oil on canvas
Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831, the year Captain George Manby became a Fellow of the Royal Society, this is Turner celebrating modern rescue. Manby's apparatus fired a rope from a mortar on the shore to a stranded ship, and he developed it after witnessing a disastrous wreck at Great Yarmouth in 1807. Turner's long title names every actor: the lifeboat, the apparatus, the vessel and her blue distress lights. Catalogued for years as Vessel in Distress off Yarmouth, it was probably painted for, or bought by, the architect John Nash, and a critic of 1831 found it warm and full of life.
“a magnificent picture, warm and all life”
The vessels An unnamed vessel stranded off the Norfolk coast near Yarmouth. The Manby apparatus, devised by George Manby (1765 to 1854), sent a line from shore to a wreck so that people could be brought off.
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
John S. Spence (schooner, lost 1827) and the rescuing brig Cobosse Contee Named ship
Loss of the Schooner 'John S. Spence' of Norfolk, Virginia, 2d View: Rescue of the Survivors, 1833
Artist Thomas Birch (1779 to 1851)
Where to see it Los Angeles County Museum of Art (M.86.308.2)
Medium Oil on canvas
Unlike many of Birch's stormy marines, this one happened. On 19 August 1827 the schooner John S. Spence sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, for Havana; six days later she was wrecked in a storm on the open sea, her bowsprit and taffrail broken and her masts turned into a confusion of ropes and broken wood. A week after the wreck Captain Isaac Staples of the brig Cobosse Contee rescued five survivors, only three of whom lived to reach New York. One of them, Alexander M. Peltz, nineteen at the time, commissioned this painting, meaning it for his rescuer; Staples was lost at sea before it was finished.
The real ship John S. Spence was a schooner of Norfolk, Virginia, lost on the open sea in August 1827 on passage to Havana; the survivors were rescued by the brig Cobosse Contee under the New England captain Isaac Staples.
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Dismasted sailing ship driven onto a rocky coast Unnamed
Shipwreck near a Rocky Coast, 1833
Artist Thomas Birch (1779 to 1851)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (2018.363)
Medium Oil on canvas
Thomas Birch, based in Philadelphia, was a leading marine painter who helped establish the genre in early nineteenth-century America. This romantic, imagined scene sets human struggle against the forces of nature: the ship's sails are torn, her masts lean to one side, and a tiny group of seafarers tries to flee the disaster. As the Art Institute observes, Birch painted it in dramatic detail yet never tells us how it ends, and the viewer is left suspended between hope and loss.
“Birch rendered the scene in dramatic detail, yet left the narrative unresolved.”
The vessels The ship is imaginary, a sailing ship of the period rather than a portrait of a named vessel.
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Amphitrite (convict ship) Named ship
A Disaster at Sea, c. 1835
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London (N00558)
Medium Oil on canvas
Never exhibited in Turner's lifetime and probably left unfinished, this canvas came to the nation with the Turner Bequest in 1856. It is generally held to have been inspired by the loss of the Amphitrite off Boulogne in August 1833, a ship carrying women convicts and their children to New South Wales, whose master refused help from the shore for fear his prisoners would escape. Turner had seen Géricault's Raft of the Medusa in London, and the picture draws on it in both style and theme: human beings left to the mercy of the sea.
The real ship The Amphitrite was built at Appledore in Devon, launched in 1802 and lengthened in 1824. Under Captain John Hunter she sailed from Woolwich on 25 August 1833 with 108 female convicts and 12 children, was driven ashore in a gale off Boulogne on 31 August and broke up with the loss of 133 lives; only three crewmen survived.
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Forfarshire and the Darlings' coble Named ship
William and Grace Darling Going to the Rescue of the SS Forfarshire, c. 1838
Artist Henry Perlee Parker (1795 to 1873) and John Wilson Carmichael (1799 to 1868)
Where to see it RNLI Grace Darling Museum, Bamburgh (RNLI:GD.2002.478)
Medium Oil on canvas
When the wreck of the Forfarshire became a national sensation, Parker saw his chance and enlisted his friend Carmichael, a marine specialist. They paid four fishermen to row them out to the Longstone lighthouse: Carmichael went on beyond it to sketch the wreckage, while Parker stayed most of a week making studies and portraits of the Darlings. The result shows father and daughter setting out in their coble towards the wreck. Engraved in mezzotint and published on the first anniversary of the rescue, it helped make Parker one of the best-known artists of the north-east.
The real ship The paddle steamer Forfarshire struck Big Harcar in the Farne Islands in the early hours of 7 September 1838 and broke in two almost at once. William and Grace Darling rowed their 21-foot Northumberland coble from the Longstone lighthouse and took off survivors from the bow section; in all eight crew and one passenger were saved.
Image: Henry Perlee Parker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
HDMS Galathea Named ship
The Corvette Galathea in a Storm in the North Sea, 1839
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS1116)
Medium Oil on canvas
The painter was himself aboard. Crossing the North Sea in the corvette Galathea, Eckersberg lived through a severe storm on 12 May 1839 and recorded it in his diary; when he finished the painting he even called the ship a frigate there by mistake. The Galathea heels under a few small storm sails, her yards almost bare, over a steep green sea streaked with foam, while the clouds begin to break into blue. It is a sailor's picture as much as a painter's, made by a man who had just felt that motion under his feet.
The real ship Built at the naval dockyard at Gammelholm, Copenhagen, to designs by Andreas Schifter and launched on 6 October 1831, the Galathea was a three-masted corvette that made the first Galathea Expedition around the world in 1845 to 1847. Sold in 1862, she later sailed as a merchant ship and was wrecked at Oran, Algeria, on 11 May 1889.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
Lexington (steamboat) Named ship
Awful Conflagration of the Steam Boat Lexington in Long Island Sound on Monday Eve, January 13th, 1840, by which melancholy occurrence, over 100 Persons Perished, 1840
Artist Nathaniel Currier (1813 to 1888), after William Keesey Hewitt (1817 to 1893)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.345(1))
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
As the story goes, Currier was in the offices of the New York Sun when news of the Lexington reached the paper; W. K. Hewitt was commissioned to draw the scene, and the print appeared in record time as a news extra. Minute figures crowd the burning decks, some hurling themselves into the icy water, while in the foreground people float on cotton bales, the very cargo that fed the fire, some calling for help and some helping others. The print secured Currier's national fame and pointed the way for the firm later known as Currier and Ives.
“It propelled him to national prominence.”
The real ship The Lexington, a 205-foot steamboat commissioned by Cornelius Vanderbilt and launched about five years before her loss, left New York for Stonington on 13 January 1840 with passengers and a cargo of cotton bales. Fire broke out near her overheated stacks; of about 140 people aboard, only four survived.
Sources The Met · journalpanorama.org
Image: Nathaniel Currier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
HMS Royal George Named ship
Loss of the Royal George, 1840
Artist John Christian Schetky (1778 to 1874)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London
Medium Oil on canvas
Schetky showed this large canvas at the Royal Academy in 1840, almost sixty years after the event, and it was given to the nation in 1885. The Royal George, once Hawke's flagship at Quiberon Bay, lay at Spithead in August 1782 with hundreds of visitors aboard when she was heeled over for work on her hull; water poured in through her lower gunports and she filled and sank. Rear Admiral Kempenfelt, writing in his cabin, was trapped when the doors jammed. William Cowper's lines turned the loss into a national elegy.
“Toll for the brave / The brave that are no more, / All sunk beneath the wave, / Fast by their native shore.”
The real ship A 100-gun first-rate built at Woolwich Dockyard and launched on 18 February 1756, the largest warship in the world at the time, the Royal George was Hawke's flagship at Quiberon Bay in 1759. On 29 August 1782 she capsized and sank at Spithead while heeled for hull work, taking about 900 people with her, including many women and children visiting the ship; 255 were saved.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: John Christian Schetky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Ship's boat from Byron's Don Juan Myth and legend
The Shipwreck of Don Juan (Le Naufrage de Don Juan), 1840
Artist Eugène Delacroix (1798 to 1863)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
Delacroix takes his wreck from the second canto of Byron's Don Juan: the hero and his companions, adrift on the Mediterranean in a ship's boat after the wreck, have run out of food and draw lots to decide who will be sacrificed to feed the rest. As a student Delacroix had posed as one of the models for Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, and here the raft becomes a small open boat, with the same hunger and despair. The picture was shown at the Salon of 1841 and acquired by the Louvre in 1883; a much earlier sketch of the subject is at the V&A.
The legend A fictional ship from Byron's poem Don Juan; the painting shows only her boat, adrift with the survivors after the wreck.
Sources Wikipedia · eclecticlight.co
Image: Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
A British slaver, after the Zong Unnamed
Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On), 1840
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (99.22)
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner showed this at the Royal Academy in 1840, the year the abolitionist campaigns were at their height, and he was possibly moved to paint it by Thomas Clarkson's history of the slave trade, which tells of the Zong: in 1781 her captain had 132 enslaved Africans thrown overboard as drinking water ran low so that the insurance could be claimed. The ship sails away through a tumultuous sea, leaving human forms floating in her wake. John Ruskin, given the painting by his father in 1844, praised it above all Turner's work; Mark Twain mocked it. Its force lies in that divide.
“If I were reduced to rest Turner's immortality upon any single work, I should choose this.”
The vessels The ship painted is not identified; the subject is linked to the massacre on the slave ship Zong in 1781, when 132 enslaved Africans were thrown overboard as drinking water ran low so that insurance payments could be collected.
Sources Wikipedia · MFA Boston
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
Reliance Named ship
The Wreck of the Reliance (November 12, 1842), 1843
Artist George Baxter (1804 to 1867)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1946.957)
Medium Steel engraving with block printing in oil-based coloured inks on paper
George Baxter, known as the Picture Printer, made technically inventive prints of the great events of his day, both the triumphs and the tragedies. For the loss of the tea ship Reliance in November 1842 he based his tableau on the description given by the only English survivor, and built the image from about eight colour blocks printed over an engraved key plate. Of the 116 people aboard, only seven survived. The result is a small, vividly coloured sheet about a great grief, made to bring a distant disaster home to British viewers.
The real ship The Reliance was a merchant ship in the tea trade, wrecked on 12 November 1842; of the 116 aboard, only seven survived.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Ann of Sunderland Named ship
A Large Ship under Caulking at Frederikshavn (Et større skib under kalfatring ved Frederikshavn), 1847
Artist Martinus Rørbye (1803 to 1848)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (RFML.PE.2023.5.1)
Medium Oil on cardboard
On the night of 27 to 28 November 1846 the schooner Ann of Sunderland, bound from Stettin to London, was wrecked on the reef at Skagen. Local fishermen saved her six crew and her cargo of grain; the wreck was towed ashore and sold at auction to the timber merchant Søren Møllebygger. Rørbye painted her in August 1847 on the beach itself, and grains of sand are trapped in the paint. The Louvre reads the scene as caulking, damaged planks replaced with new wood, though some historians have argued she was being broken up. Either way, the great bare hull is a ship between death and second life.
The real ship Ann of Sunderland was a schooner wrecked on Skagen Reef on 27 to 28 November 1846 on passage from Stettin to London with grain; the salvaged hull was sold on 31 December 1846 to Søren Møllebygger, who had it partly dismantled and repaired in 1847.
Image: Martinus Rørbye, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Drawing
Ocean Monarch, with the steam frigate Affonso, the yacht Queen of the Ocean and the paddle steamer Prince of Wales Named ship
Burning of the Ocean Monarch, emigrant ship, 24 August 1848
Artist Attributed to François d'Orléans, Prince de Joinville (1818 to 1900)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF7740)
Medium Watercolour heightened with white, with scratching out
The Ocean Monarch had left Liverpool for Boston that morning with about 360 emigrants when fire broke out some fifty miles out, off Great Orme's Head. Her captain dropped anchor and threw the spars overboard for those who had jumped; nearly half her passengers died. Here the fire blazes in her stern while the passengers crowd into the bow, some clambering down lines towards the boats. The Brazilian steam frigate Affonso, which had the Prince de Joinville on board, came to help, and the drawing is attributed to that prince, which would make it a witness's view.
“The majority of her passengers are crowded towards the bow to escape the flames”
The real ship The Ocean Monarch, an American emigrant barque, left Liverpool for Boston on 24 August 1848 with about 360 passengers. Fire broke out at midday about fifty miles out; the Affonso, the steamer Prince of Wales, a yacht and the packet New World came to her aid, but nearly 180 people died.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Attributed to François d'Orléans, Prince de Joinville, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
A sailing ship wrecked off Ferring on the Jutland coast Unnamed
Shipwreck after a Storm off the West Coast of Jutland near Ferring Church (Skibbrud efter en storm ved Jyllands vestkyst ud for Ferring Kirke), c. 1848
Artist Carl Frederik Sørensen (1818 to 1879)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS547)
Medium Oil on canvas
The storm has passed, but on the exposed west coast of Jutland the sea it leaves behind is still dangerous. Sørensen, a Danish marine painter whose work found buyers as far as the courts of St Petersburg, London and Athens, paints a sailing ship wrecked off Ferring, with the village church on the coast as the landmark that names the place. The subject is the aftermath rather than the drama. The canvas, dated 1848, is in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
The vessels An unnamed sailing vessel driven ashore on the exposed North Sea coast of western Jutland.
Image: Carl Frederik Sørensen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
RMS Amazon Named ship
The Destruction of the Royal West India Steam Company's Ship Amazon by Fire, in the Bay of Biscay, on the morning of January 4th 1852, on her first outward Voyage
Artist Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton, published by Rudolph Ackermann, printed by Day and Son
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH8961)
Medium Lithograph, coloured
The Amazon was brand new, a Royal Mail steamer on her maiden voyage to the West Indies, when she caught fire in the Bay of Biscay two days after sailing. Between 105 and 115 people died, among them the popular travel writer and novelist Eliot Warburton, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert championed a national appeal for the bereaved. Dutton signed this print and dated it in the plate 22 January 1852, less than three weeks after the disaster, and its long title reads like a report for a public hungry for news.
The real ship Built by R and H Green at Blackwall Yard and launched on 28 June 1851, the Amazon was one of five wooden-hulled paddle steamers ordered by the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. She left on her maiden voyage on 2 January 1852 and was destroyed by fire in the Bay of Biscay on 4 January.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Drawing
HMS Birkenhead Named ship
Loss of the Birkenhead, 26 February 1852, 1852 to 1890
Artist Ralph MacGeough Bond Shelton (born c. 1833)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH0930)
Medium Watercolour on card, heightened with white
This is the wreck as seen by one who lived through it. Bond Shelton was a nineteen-year-old cornet in the 12th Royal Lancers aboard the Birkenhead when she was lost, and he survived. His drawing was shown at the Royal Military and Royal Naval Exhibitions at Chelsea Hospital in 1890 and 1891, and is said to have inspired Thomas Hemy's better-known oil. The story it records became a byword for discipline: the soldiers held steady while all the women and children were put into the boats and landed safely.
The real ship Laid down at John Laird's yard in Birkenhead as the steam frigate Vulcan, launched in 1845 and reclassified as a troopship in 1851, the paddle steamer Birkenhead struck an uncharted rock off Danger Point near Gansbaai on 26 February 1852. A second impact broke her in two; of about 643 people aboard, only 193 were saved.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Ralph MacGeough Bond Shelton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
HMS Birkenhead Named ship
Wreck of Her Majesty's Steam Frigate Birkenhead on the 26th February off Point Danger near the Cape of Good Hope, 1852
Artist Read and Co.
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF8101)
Medium Lithograph, hand-coloured
Dated 15 April 1852, only seven weeks after the wreck, this hand-coloured lithograph is the disaster as the public first saw it. Its inscription gives the figures as they were then understood: 630 passengers and crew, 438 of them lost. The legend of the Birkenhead, soldiers holding steady so that the women and children could be saved, was only beginning; later painters such as Thomas Hemy, inspired by a survivor's drawing, would give it its heroic form.
“with 630 Passengers & Crew - 438 of whom were lost”
The real ship Laid down at John Laird's yard in Birkenhead as the steam frigate Vulcan and launched in 1845, then reclassified as a troopship in 1851, the Birkenhead struck an uncharted rock off Danger Point near Gansbaai on 26 February 1852 and broke in two; of about 643 aboard only 193 were saved.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Droits de l'Homme, with HMS Indefatigable and HMS Amazon Named ship
The Wreck of the Droits de l'Homme (Naufrage du Droits de l'Homme), 1853
Artist Léopold Le Guen
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest
Medium Oil on canvas
Returning from the failed French expedition to Ireland, the 74-gun Droits de l'Homme was caught off Brittany on 13 January 1797 by the British frigates Indefatigable and Amazon. For more than fifteen hours, in a rising gale close to the rocky Breton coast, the seas were so heavy that she could not open her lower gunports, and the nimbler frigates battered her until she was swept onto a sandbar and destroyed. Between 400 and 1,000 of the 1,300 people aboard died, and the Amazon was wrecked too. Le Guen places the French ship at the centre, between the two frigates.
The real ship Droits de l'Homme was a French 74-gun ship of the line of the Expédition d'Irlande of 1796 to 1797; she was destroyed on the Breton coast after her action with HMS Indefatigable (44) and HMS Amazon (36), which was also lost with six men drowned.
Sources Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Léopold Le Guen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
HMS St Jean d'Acre and her rescue boat Named ship
Man Overboard: Rescue Launch from HMS St Jean d'Acre, after 1854
Artist Oswald Walters Brierly (1817 to 1894)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3619)
Medium Oil on canvas
Brierly knew this ship from the inside: in 1854, during the Crimean War, he sailed to the Baltic as the guest of Captain Harry Keppel in the St Jean d'Acre, and this picture interprets an incident from that voyage. The great three-decker, in the Navy's black-and-white livery, has hove to, flying the Church pendant as the signal for a man overboard, her rigging lined with watching sailors. In the heavy swell the man raises his arm towards two sailors standing up in the rescue boat as it crests a wave. The whole ship waits on one life.
The real ship HMS St Jean d'Acre was a three-decker first-rate of 101 guns, dating from 1853, which served in the Baltic during the Crimean War under Captain Harry Keppel.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Oswald Walters Brierly, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
San Francisco (steamship, lost 1853 to 1854) Named ship
The Wreck of the Steam Ship "San Francisco", Disabled on Her Voyage from New York to San Francisco, Dec. 24th, 1853, and in a Sinking Condition, 1854
Artist After James E. Buttersworth (1817 to 1894); published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.545)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
A news picture of a disaster followed around the world. In late December 1853 the steamship San Francisco, bound from New York for California with passengers and United States Army soldiers aboard, was caught in a storm off the Atlantic seaboard and disabled, in danger of sinking. Over the following week the ship Antarctic under Captain George Stouffer and two other ships took off about three quarters of those aboard. Currier's lithograph, after a design by the marine painter James E. Buttersworth, carried the scene to a public anxious for news.
The real ship San Francisco was a steamship carrying passengers and soldiers from New York towards San Francisco when she was disabled in a storm on 24 December 1853; about 500 people were rescued by the Antarctic of New York, the Three Bells of Glasgow and a third ship.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
A sailing ship wrecked under the cliffs of Mount Athos Unnamed
Shipwreck off Mount Athos (Korablekrushenie u Afonskoy gory), 1856
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Aivazovsky painted this wreck on the coast of Athos, the Holy Mountain of the northern Aegean, in 1856. A sailing ship is lost under the cliffs of the peninsula, and the painter, one of the great masters of marine art, makes the light and the sea the true subject of the picture while the ship is overwhelmed. The canvas, just under one and a half metres wide, is in the Central Naval Museum in St Petersburg, which also holds his pictures of the Black Sea fleet's raids in the war of 1877.
The vessels An unnamed sailing vessel lost on the rocky coast of the Athos peninsula in the northern Aegean.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Lefort Named ship
Shipwreck of the Lefort. An Allegorical Image, 1858
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
When the Lefort capsized in a squall in the Gulf of Finland in September 1857, taking all 826 people aboard with her, including sailors' wives and children, the naval officers of Kronstadt ordered a painting from Aivazovsky. He made it an allegory, intended for the Kronstadt chapel, so that the lost ship would be read as a requiem for everyone who has perished at sea. Alexander II had other ideas and ordered it hung in the Kronstadt Maritime Assembly, on the strength of its quality as a picture. It now belongs to the Central Naval Museum.
“was to be perceived as a requiem to all those who perished at sea”
The real ship The Lefort, an 84-gun wooden ship of the line of the Empress Alexandra class, was laid down on 18 November 1833. Sailing from Revel to Kronstadt with two other ships, she was rolled onto her port side by a squall between Gogland and Bolshoy Tyuters on 10 September 1857 (Julian calendar) and capsized; nobody survived. Her wreck was found at a depth of 70 metres in 2013.
Sources eng.navalmuseum.ru · uwex.org · wikiart.org
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Eastern Monarch Named ship
Burning of the Troopship Eastern Monarch at Spithead, June 1859
Artist Arthur Wellington Fowles
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3304)
Medium Oil on canvas
Fowles signed and dated this picture in the very year of the disaster. On 4 June 1859 the troopship Eastern Monarch, belonging to the Somes Brothers of London, suffered an explosion on board off Spithead, caught fire and sank; HMS Flying Fish and HMS Falcon rescued the survivors. Fowles recorded the loss while it was still news, and his canvas is now in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. It is reportage in oil, a troopship lost in the roadstead off Portsmouth, set down while the smoke had hardly cleared.
The real ship Eastern Monarch was a troopship owned by the Somes Brothers and registered at London (Lloyd's Register 1858 to 1859); she burned and sank off Spithead on 4 June 1859 after an explosion on board.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Arthur Wellington Fowles, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Forfarshire and the Darlings' coble Named ship
Grace Darling and her Father William Darling save the Survivors from the Wreck of the Steamer Forfarshire on the Farne Rocks, 7th September 1838, 1860
Artist William Bell Scott (1811 to 1890)
Where to see it National Trust, Wallington, Northumberland (NT 584371)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned by Sir Walter Trevelyan to decorate the courtyard at Wallington, this is one of Bell Scott's eight oil paintings illustrating the history of the English Border, signed and dated January to October 1860. In it Grace's rescue takes its place in a Northumbrian epic. The National Trust recounts how William Darling, seeing a handful of survivors on rocks a mile away across a fast channel, thought rescue impossible until Grace insisted they try. The painter used his great friend Alice Boyd as the model for the woman on the wreck.
“Together they launched the coble and rowed out to the wreck and saved eight lives.”
The real ship The paddle steamer Forfarshire struck Big Harcar in the Farne Islands on 7 September 1838 and broke in two; William and Grace Darling rowed their coble from the Longstone lighthouse to take off the survivors.
Sources nationaltrustcollections.org.uk · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Wallington Hall, Northumberland, where the original is kept. Photo: Hadrianus1959, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Nantucket (whaling ship), aground in 1859 Named ship
Shipwreck off Nantucket (Wreck off Nantucket after a Storm), c. 1860 to 1861
Artist William Bradford (1823 to 1892)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1971.192)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the night of 8 August 1859 the whaling ship Nantucket ran aground on Nashawena Island, one of the Elizabeth Islands at the entrance to Vineyard Sound. The next day Bradford left his studio in New Bedford to observe the scene, preparing this large, epic picture of the wreck. The Met connects the heavy seas and tilting ship to his recent work alongside Albert Van Beest, who had trained in the Dutch marine tradition, while the careful drawing of the whaler's deck and the small craft around her shows Bradford's own knowledge of ships.
The real ship Nantucket was a whaling ship that went aground at Nashawena Island in the Elizabeth Islands, Massachusetts, on the night of 8 August 1859.
Sources The Met
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Survivors' boat from a wrecked ship Myth and legend
Shipwreck off a Coast (Naufrage sur la côte), 1862
Artist Eugène Delacroix (1798 to 1863)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted the year before his death, this small canvas brings to an end Delacroix's long series of shipwreck pictures, which had begun with the Shipwreck of Don Juan twenty years earlier. At last Byron's castaways have made landfall, and in the left foreground one of them is being rescued from the sea. The brushstrokes are extremely loose, so that surf, sky and figures seem made of the same rushing weather. It reads as an epilogue to Don Juan: the shore those starving men in their boat had longed for.
The legend No real ship is identified; the scene has been read as the landfall of the survivors of the Don Juan shipwreck from Byron's poem.
Sources eclecticlight.co
Image: Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Wreck of a small vessel stranded off Brace's Rock Unnamed
Brace's Rock, Eastern Point, Gloucester, c. 1863 to 1864
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington, John Wilmerding Collection (promised gift)
Medium Oil on canvas
Among Lane's last works is Brace's Rock on Eastern Point, a subject he painted more than once, with a wrecked hull lying just offshore in a jewel-like calm. In this version, slightly larger than the one at the Cape Ann Museum, the wreck heads towards the shore with more of its hull exposed, and the foreground boulders are more prominent and the autumn leaves brighter. The catalogue notes that where many painters of the day copied their own work almost exactly, Lane varied each version. The abandoned hull becomes an emblem of time and quiet loss.
“Lane, even in his last days, was not content to copy but varied the elements just enough to keep his interest”
The vessels The wreck is an unidentified small vessel, one of the stranded hulls Lane returned to repeatedly on the Gloucester shore.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Small sailing boats running for shelter on Narragansett Bay Unnamed
Thunder Storm on Narragansett Bay, 1868
Artist Martin Johnson Heade (1819 to 1904)
Where to see it Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth (1977.17)
Medium Oil on canvas
A black sky fills the upper part of the canvas and a thin zigzag of lightning splits it, while below, the water of Narragansett Bay lies extremely calm. White sails are scattered across the bay, some under grey cloud, others already caught in the downpour. On the beach, among the timbers of an old shipwreck, one sailor furls the sail of his boat while two companions walk unhurriedly up the shore with oars and a bucket. The Amon Carter notes that Heade, largely self-taught, painted at least eight storm pictures between 1859 and 1868.
“thunderstorms, lightning bolts, and returning ships were used to symbolize the passage of the United States through an era of profound social turmoil”
The vessels The boats are the small sailing craft of the Rhode Island shore, used for fishing and pleasure on the sheltered waters of Narragansett Bay.
Sources cartermuseum.org · Wikipedia
Image: Martin Johnson Heade, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
Northfleet Named ship
Loss of the Northfleet (The Captain's Farewell), 1873
Artist Gust. May
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF7747)
Medium Lithograph, coloured
The Northfleet was lying at anchor off Dungeness one January night in 1873, carrying labourers and their families with iron rails to build a railway in Tasmania, when a steamer ran her down and backed away into the darkness. The heavily laden ship sank within half an hour. Captain Edward Knowles went down with her; of the women aboard only his wife and one emigrant survived. This coloured print takes its subtitle from that parting, The Captain's Farewell, and turns a collision in the Channel into a Victorian tragedy of duty.
The real ship Built at Northfleet, Kent, in 1853 for Duncan Dunbar, the Northfleet traded to Australia, India and China. Run down at anchor off Dungeness on 22 January 1873 by a steamer later identified as the Spanish Murillo, she sank with the loss of 293 lives; 86 were saved.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Ingermanland Named ship
Loss of the Ship Ingermanland in the Skagerrak on the Night of 30 August 1842, 1876
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Aivazovsky reconstructs a real night of terror long after it happened. The Ingermanland, launched at Arkhangelsk only months before, was sailing for the Baltic with her crew and a number of women and children when a storm drove her onto the rocks off the Norwegian coast; 389 people were reported dead. The painter, whose pictures of gales and storms number more than four thousand, chose one of the most dramatic moments of the disaster, so the picture serves as a memorial as much as a seascape. It is kept by the Russian Navy's own museum.
The real ship A 74-gun, three-masted ship of the line built at the Solombala yards in Arkhangelsk and launched on 24 May 1842. On her voyage to the Baltic she mistook the Oksøy light for another ship's lantern, grounded off Kristiansand and sank off Varhaug; 503 people were rescued and 389 reported dead, among them 21 women and seven children.
Sources eng.navalmuseum.ru · eclecticlight.co · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg, where the original is kept. Photo: A.Savin, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Livadia Named ship
The Final Moments of the Imperial Yacht Livadia, 1878
Artist Alexey Bogolyubov (1824 to 1896)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Sotheby's, London, 27 November 2007)
Medium Oil on canvas
Livadia was the Romanovs' Black Sea yacht and the only Russian imperial yacht to see active service, converted into an armed auxiliary cruiser in the war of 1877 to 1878, when she sank a Turkish schooner and survived an eighteen-hour pursuit by two Turkish ironclads. On the evening of 21 October 1878 she left Sevastopol for Odessa in bad weather, with none of the imperial family aboard, and in the fog of the next morning ran aground near the Tarkhankut lighthouse. The crew reached shore and saved most of the furnishings, but 47 days later the waves destroyed her. Bogolyubov, a former naval officer, was artist to the Navy headquarters.
The real ship Built in 1869 to 1873 by Leopold Schwede at Nikolaev, displacing 1,965 tons, with imperial suites designed by Ippolit Monighetti, she carried the Romanovs between Sevastopol and Yalta and was wrecked near Cape Tarkhankut, Crimea, on 22 October 1878.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Alexey Bogolyubov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
HMS Endymion and a French ship of the line Named ship
HMS Endymion rescuing a French two decker, late 19th century
Artist Ebenezer Colls (1812 to 1887)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0532)
Medium Oil on canvas
In wartime, an enemy in distress is still a ship full of seamen. As the story was told, Captain Sir Charles Paget in the frigate Endymion found a French ship of the line embayed among rocks on a lee shore in a gale, bowsprit and foremast gone. He bore down, dropped his sheet anchor on the Frenchman's bow so she could haul herself clear, saving seven hundred lives, then club hauled his own ship off the rocks. Long doubted, the tale was confirmed in 1911 by Paget's grandson, who recalled that Sir Charles mostly worried how to explain the two lost anchors to the Admiralty.
“descried a French ship of the line in imminent danger, embayed among rocks upon a lee shore”
The real ship HMS Endymion was a large frigate launched in 1797 and commanded by Sir Charles Paget from 1803 to 1805. The French ship she rescued has never been identified.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Indian Chief, the lifeboat Bradford and the tug Vulcan Named ship
The Ramsgate lifeboat Bradford rescuing the crew of the Indian Chief, wrecked on Long Sands in January 1881
Artist Richard Henry Nibbs (1816 to 1893)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1268)
Medium Oil on canvas
Long catalogued simply as a shipwreck with a paddle tug towing a lifeboat in a gale, this canvas was later identified as one of the great Victorian rescues. The barque Indian Chief lies aground on the left, keeled over and dismasted, figures on her deck waving for help, while the Ramsgate harbour steamer tows the lifeboat Bradford out to her. The sun rising behind clearing clouds reads as dawn bringing hope. Nibbs gave the tug two funnels, though the Vulcan had only one. The coxswain, Charles Fish, received the RNLI gold medal.
The real ship The barque Indian Chief, bound from Middlesbrough to Yokohama, was driven onto the Long Sands in a gale early on 5 January 1881. The Ramsgate lifeboat Bradford, towed all night by the harbour steamer Vulcan, found her at dawn on 6 January and took off twelve men, though the second mate died of exposure; the master and sixteen others had already been washed away.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Drawing
Iron Crown Named ship
Wreck of the Iron Crown, 1881
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Baltimore Museum of Art
Medium Watercolour on paper
Homer lived for nearly two years, in 1881 and 1882, in the fishing village of Cullercoats on the north-east coast of England, where he saw the hard life of the fisherfolk at first hand. In the early morning of 21 October 1881 the thousand-ton barque Iron Crown was driven aground in a storm, and her crew were rescued over the following hours. Homer built this watercolour, probably from sketches, witness accounts and photographs, around the second and final pass of the lifeboat, needed to take off the last man aboard. Cullercoats left a lasting change in his art.
The real ship The Iron Crown, a barque of about a thousand tons, was driven aground in a storm on the north-east coast of England in the early morning of 21 October 1881; her crew were rescued and the wreck broke up.
Sources eclecticlight.co
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Baltimore Museum of Art, where the original is kept. Photo: Nrswanson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Skagen lifeboat Unnamed
The Lifeboat is Taken through the Dunes (Redningsbåden køres gennem klitterne), 1883
Artist Michael Ancher (1849 to 1927)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS1222)
Medium Oil on canvas
There is no wreck in the foreground, only the effort to reach it. Through snow-covered dunes a team of horses drags the Skagen lifeboat on its carriage, while a crowd of fishermen in oilskins and sou'westers trudges behind; one man calls out through cupped hands, another carries a spade, and far out on the grey sea at the right a ship in distress waits. Michael Ancher made Skagen's fishermen and their dramatic experiences at sea his life's subject, and this canvas of 1883 is counted among his key works.
The vessels The Skagen lifeboat was kept ashore and hauled across the dunes to be launched to ships in distress off the coast; here it travels on a wheeled carriage drawn by horses.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Foundering ship and breeches buoy Unnamed
The Life Line, 1884
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Philadelphia Museum of Art (E1924-4-15)
Medium Oil on canvas
Homer paints the rescue, not the wreck. The dramatic transfer from a foundering ship was made possible by a recent lifesaving device, the breeches buoy, secured to ship and shore and hauled back and forth on a pulley. Cropped to its essentials, the picture thrusts us into the action: massive waves roll past, drenching a semiconscious woman and the anonymous man who carries her to safety. Critics recognised it at once as a major contribution to American art.
“portraying a heroic, contemporary subject with both painterly virtuosity and detailed observation”
The vessels The ship is unnamed. The breeches buoy, a recent innovation in the 1880s, was secured between a stranded vessel and the shore so that people could be hauled to safety on a pulley.
Sources Philadelphia Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Ancon (side-wheel steamer, 1867) Named ship
Wreck of the 'Ancon' in Loring Bay, Alaska, 1889
Artist Albert Bierstadt (1830 to 1902)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (47.1250)
Medium Painting
Bierstadt was there. At 3 in the morning on 28 August 1889 the excursion steamer Ancon, leaving the salmon saltery wharf at Loring, Alaska, on an ebbing tide, drifted sideways when her stern line was let go too early and grounded on a reef a few hundred feet from shore. As the tide fell she broke in two; some passengers had to escape through their cabin windows. The packing company sheltered them in its buildings, private homes and Tlingit houses. Bierstadt wrote to his wife of a narrow escape, saved his art supplies and made sixty colour studies, this wreck among them.
The real ship Ancon, a wooden side-wheel steamer, was launched at Hunter's Point, San Francisco, in 1867 as a ferry for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company at Panama, rebuilt as an ocean-going ship in 1872, and from 1887 ran permanently in the Alaska trade for the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. After the 1889 wreck two thirds of her cargo was salvaged and the hulk was burned.
Sources Wikipedia · MFA Boston
Image: Albert Bierstadt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Ship's boat lettered Concarneau Named in the picture
Adieu!, 1892
Artist Alfred Guillou (1844 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper
Medium Oil on canvas
Guillou, born and buried in Concarneau, turns away from the spectacle of the wreck to its human cost. A survivor, in the stern of a ship's boat whose name, Concarneau, places the scene on the coast of Brittany, embraces a boy, probably his son, who has not survived. The title is the only word needed. Nearly two and a half metres wide, the canvas belongs to a moment late in the century when painters moved closer to consider the human consequences of shipwreck.
The vessels A ship's boat lettered Concarneau, the Breton port where Guillou was born and died.
Sources eclecticlight.co · Wikipedia (FR)
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Maria Named ship
The Ship Maria in a Storm (Korabl Mariya vo vremya shtorma), 1892
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Aivazovsky National Art Gallery, Feodosia
Medium Oil on canvas
A very large canvas, more than three and a half metres wide, painted by Aivazovsky in 1892 when he was in his mid-seventies, and now in the Aivazovsky National Art Gallery in Feodosia. The Russian title names the ship simply Maria and shows her in a storm; she is a sailing warship alone against the sea. At this scale the viewer seems to stand in the trough of the wave beside her. It is a late work by the painter many consider one of the greatest masters of marine art.
The real ship The Russian title names the ship simply Maria; she is shown as a sailing ship in a storm. The vessel herself has not been identified.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
HMS Birkenhead Named ship
The Wreck of the Birkenhead, c. 1892
Artist Thomas Marie Madawaska Hemy (1852 to 1937)
Location Large original lost; a smaller version survives
Medium Painting
Forty years after the wreck, Hemy painted the scene Victorian Britain wanted to remember: soldiers, marines and sailors standing on deck while the women and children are taken off the stricken troopship. The Royal Museums Greenwich record that he was inspired by the drawing of the survivor Bond Shelton, shown at Chelsea in 1890. The large canvas is now lost and is known from a smaller version, but its image lasted, and so did the phrase it illustrates: Kipling's Birkenhead drill, courage in hopeless circumstances.
“to stand an' be still to the Birken'ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew”
The real ship Launched at John Laird's yard in Birkenhead in 1845 and reclassified as a troopship in 1851, the paddle steamer Birkenhead struck an uncharted rock off Danger Point, South Africa, on 26 February 1852 and broke in two; of about 643 aboard only 193 were saved, among them all the women and children.
Sources royalmarineshistory.com · Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Marie Madawaska Hemy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Drawing
HMS Victoria Named ship
H.M.S. Victoria sinking by the bows after clearing Camperdown, probably 1893
Artist Reginald Graham Gregory
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAD6306)
Medium Watercolour with bodycolour
Off Tripoli on 22 June 1893 the Mediterranean Fleet was steaming in two divisions only 1,200 yards apart when Vice Admiral Sir George Tryon ordered them to turn in succession and reverse course, though the ships needed at least 1,600 yards to turn. As his flagship Victoria turned, the armoured ram of the Camperdown struck her. This watercolour, kept with others recording the collision, shows the stricken battleship going down by the bows after drawing clear of the Camperdown; she sank in about fifteen minutes. Among the survivors was John Jellicoe, later commander-in-chief of the Grand Fleet at Jutland.
The real ship Built by Armstrong, Mitchell and Co at Elswick and launched on 9 April 1887, the Victoria was lead ship of her class of two and flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet. She sank after the collision with HMS Camperdown near Tripoli on 22 June 1893; 358 of her crew died, including Admiral Tryon.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Drawing
Shattered fragments of a small Bahamian boat Unnamed
After the Hurricane, Bahamas, 1899
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1933.1235)
Medium Watercolour over graphite
Homer painted this watercolour on his second visit to the Bahamas, in the winter of 1898 to 1899. A luckless man lies washed up on the beach, surrounded by the fragments of his shattered boat. Sunlight glints through thinning storm clouds, and thick strokes of opaque red and yellow mark the seaweed tossed on the sand, against the thin, fluid washes of the retreating waves. The Art Institute sees in it Homer's fascination with the sudden and dangerous weather of the islands; on the back of the sheet he wrote 'After the Tornado'. The broken craft is all that is left to tell the story.
The vessels The wreck is of a small island boat, known only from the fragments the Art Institute describes around the man on the beach.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Anna, Key West Named in the picture
The Gulf Stream, 1899, reworked by 1906
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (06.1234)
Medium Oil on canvas
A Black sailor lies on the deck of a small dismasted, rudderless fishing boat, sharks around him and storm-tossed waves on every side. Homer, who crossed the Gulf Stream many times, built the picture from watercolours made at Nassau in the winter of 1898 to 1899, and went on reworking it after it was first shown: breaking the gunwale, making the name Anna, Key West legible and adding a ship on the far horizon, perhaps to ease the desolation. In 1906 the jury of the National Academy of Design petitioned the Met to buy it. Homer refused to explain it.
“The boat & sharks are outside matters of very little consequence.”
The vessels An imagined small fishing boat, dismasted and without a rudder, lettered Anna, Key West on her stern; boats of this kind worked the waters Homer knew around Florida and the Bahamas.
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Lifeboat adrift after a shipwreck Unnamed
The Wreck (L'Épave), before 1901
Artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824 to 1904)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 31 May 2024)
Medium Oil on canvas
Gérôme gives us no ship at all, only what is left of one. In the lower left corner a lifeboat drifts with a small mast carrying a scrap of white cloth. There has been a shipwreck of which no trace remains, and there were no survivors. The sea is calm and the sky clear, and that stillness is the shock of the picture. Unknown until 2024, when it was found in a Paris dealer's stock and sold at the Hôtel Drouot, the canvas was at once connected by viewers with the migrants lost in the Mediterranean today.
The vessels An unnamed ship's lifeboat, fitted with a makeshift mast and distress flag, adrift after the loss of its ship; the painting refers to no identified wreck.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · gazette-drouot.com
No free image of this work exists.
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
SS Sirio Named ship
Wreckage of the Sirio (Naufrágio do Sírio), 1907
Artist Benedito Calixto (1853 to 1927)
Where to see it Museu de Arte Sacra de São Paulo
Medium Oil on canvas
Among the passengers on the Sirio when she ran aground at full speed off Cape Palos in August 1906 was the Bishop of São Paulo, José de Camargo Barros, who is said to have gone down with the ship while blessing the drowning. A year later the Brazilian painter Benedito Calixto made this memorial. On the sinking ship a bishop blesses two kneeling Benedictines: Boniface Natter, first abbot of the refounded Buckfast Abbey, who drowned, and Anscar Vonier, who survived to succeed him. That is why a shipwreck hangs in São Paulo's Museum of Sacred Art.
The real ship A passenger steamer of about 4,141 tons built by Robert Napier and Sons of Glasgow for Genoese owners and later run by Navigazione Generale Italiana, the Sirio carried emigrants to South America. She ran aground off Cape Palos, Spain, on 4 August 1906, and at least two hundred people died; the wreck was remembered in popular songs of the time.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (PT)
Image: Benedito Calixto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
Boyd Named ship
The Burning of the Boyd, Whangaroa Harbour, 1809, 1908
Artist Walter Wright (1866 to 1933)
Where to see it Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland (1908/1/3)
Medium Oil on canvas
In October 1809 the brigantine Boyd sailed from Sydney Cove to Whangaroa Harbour to load kauri spars. Aboard was Te Ara, a man of rank of Ngāti Pou, who was flogged on the voyage; in December his people attacked the ship in retaliation, and between 66 and 70 of those aboard were killed. Afterwards the Boyd was taken to their village, and when a flint was struck near the gunpowder barrels in her hold she burned to the waterline of her copper sheathing; the hull was declared tapu. News of the killings delayed the first missionary visits and nearly emptied the coast of shipping for years.
The real ship Boyd was a 395-ton brigantine that had carried convicts to New South Wales; under Captain John Thompson she sailed from Sydney Cove to Whangaroa in October 1809 with about 70 people aboard, was captured there in December and burned out when her gunpowder ignited.
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Print
RMS Titanic Named ship
The Sinking of the Titanic (Der Untergang der Titanic), 1912
Artist Willy Stöwer (1864 to 1931)
Source Published in the magazine Die Gartenlaube, 1912
Medium Illustration for the magazine Die Gartenlaube
Willy Stöwer, the son of a sea captain and a former shipyard technician, drew the Titanic going down shortly after the disaster, without detailed information, for the magazine Die Gartenlaube. There are errors, most famously black smoke pouring from the fourth funnel, which was only for ventilation. It did not matter. The illustration earned him particular popularity and has been reprinted many times since, so that for many people it simply is the sinking of the Titanic.
The real ship Built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast and launched on 31 May 1911, the Titanic sailed on her maiden voyage on 10 April 1912, struck an iceberg and sank on 15 April 1912; approximately 1,500 people died.
Sources Wikipedia
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
RMS Carpathia Named ship
View of Steamship Carpathia Passing along the Edge of the Ice Flow after Rescuing Survivors of the Titanic, 1912
Artist Colin Campbell Cooper (1856 to 1937)
Where to see it Location not recorded
Medium Gouache on cardboard
The American painter Colin Campbell Cooper and his wife happened to be passengers aboard the Carpathia when she went to the rescue of the Titanic's survivors on 15 April 1912. They gave up their cabin so that survivors would have berths to sleep in, and Cooper helped in the rescue and made several paintings recording what he saw. This one shows the rescue ship afterwards, passing along the edge of the ice. It is a rare thing: a picture of the Titanic's aftermath painted by a witness.
The real ship The Cunard liner Carpathia answered the Titanic's distress calls and picked up her surviving lifeboats on the morning of 15 April 1912.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Colin Campbell Cooper, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Wrecks, storms and rescue · Painting
RMS Lancastria Named ship
Sinking of the Lancastria, 17 June 1940, probably 1960s
Artist Robert W. May
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0673)
Medium Oil on textured artists' paper
The Lancastria was evacuating British troops and civilians from St Nazaire, perhaps more than 7,000 people, when German aircraft bombed her; in less than twenty minutes she rolled over and sank. It is regarded as the worst loss of life Britain ever suffered from one vessel, and the news was at first suppressed to protect morale. May paints the aftermath from the water: a crowded lifeboat with the ship's name on its side, people clinging to planks in an oil slick, bombers overhead and the ship burning in the distance, all under a clear blue sky that makes the scene feel unreal.
The real ship Built by William Beardmore at Dalmuir and launched in 1920 as Tyrrhenia for the Anchor Line, a Cunard subsidiary, she was renamed Lancastria in 1924 and became a troopship in the Second World War. She was bombed and sunk off St Nazaire on 17 June 1940; an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 people died and about 2,500 were rescued.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Tapestry
The Norman invasion fleet of 1066 Unnamed
The Bayeux Tapestry, late 11th century
Artist Unknown embroiderers
Where to see it Bayeux Museum, Bayeux (on loan to the British Museum, London, 2026 to 2027)
Medium Wool embroidery on linen
Nearly 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall, the Bayeux Tapestry tells the Norman conquest of England in coloured wool on linen, and ships are among its heroes: 41 ships and boats among its 623 figures and 994 animals. It is generally thought to have been commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, William's half-brother, and historians value it as a record of eleventh-century life, clothing, castles and ships included. In September 2026 it left France for the first time in its history, on loan to the British Museum, so the invasion fleet crossed the Channel once more.
The vessels The Norman fleet carried William's army across the Channel in 1066; the Tapestry is among the principal pictures of ships of that period.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Bayeux Museum, Bayeux, where the original is kept. Photo: Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Venetian and papal war galleys at Santa Maura Unnamed
Jacopo Pesaro being presented by Pope Alexander VI to Saint Peter, c. 1506 to 1511
Artist Titian (1488 or 1490 to 1576)
Where to see it Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp (KMSKA 357)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned as an ex-voto for the Venetian naval victory that retook Santa Maura (Lefkada) from the Ottomans in August 1502, the altarpiece shows Bishop Jacopo Pesaro, papal legate and commander of the papal fleet, kneeling before Saint Peter, a standard with Pope Alexander VI's arms in his hand and his helmet set down beside him. Between his head and the saint, war galleys can be seen in action on the sea. They are the reason for the whole picture: the Pope had contributed thirteen galleys to a fleet commanded by Pesaro's cousin Benedetto, and the little battle is the thanksgiving made visible.
The vessels Oared war galleys of the Venetian and papal fleets in the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499 to 1503; Alexander VI contributed 13 galleys to the mainly Venetian force that took Santa Maura in 1502.
Sources Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai Named ship
Portuguese Carracks off a Rocky Coast, c. 1540
Artist Circle of Joachim Patinir (possibly Jan or Matthijs Cock)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0705)
Medium Oil on panel
This is the oldest painting of the sea by a Flemish or Flemish-trained artist in the National Maritime Museum, and one of the few contemporary paintings of ships of the first half of the sixteenth century. Ten ships, a caravel, three galleys and a rowing barge sail off a fortified coast. At the centre is thought to be the Portuguese carrack Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai, firing salutes, dressed for a royal wedding voyage: in 1521 she is thought to have carried the Infanta Beatriz to Villefranche to marry the Duke of Savoy, her cabin furnished with brocade, carpets and velvet cushions. The painter even marks the coded bonnets laced to her mainsail.
“the oldest painting of the sea by a Flemish or Flemish-trained artist”
The real ship The Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai was built of teak at Cochin in India in 1510 as one of the large armed merchant ships of the Portuguese East Indies trade; she is thought to have carried the Infanta Beatriz of Portugal to Villefranche in 1521 for her marriage to Charles III, Duke of Savoy.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · picryl.com
Image: Circle of Joachim Patinir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The Holy League and Ottoman galleys at Lepanto Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, between 1571 and 1608
Artist Georgios Klontzas (c. 1535 to 1608)
Medium Painting
Georgios Klontzas, a scholar and painter of Heraklion in Venetian Crete, is known for complex compositions populated with countless figures, and his Battle of Lepanto is counted among his most popular works. Here the whole sea is filled with galley squadrons, packed so densely that the panel reads like a tapestry of oars and hulls, while above them, in a band of gold, saints ride on the clouds. A painter from the Greek world under Venetian rule, he gives the great Christian victory the heavenly witnesses of an icon. It offers a view of Lepanto from the eastern Mediterranean rather than from Rome or Madrid.
The vessels At Lepanto on 7 October 1571 a Christian fleet of over 200 galleys, mainly Venetian and Spanish, defeated the Turkish fleet.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Georgios Klontzas; photo Tzim78, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The galleys of the Holy League and the Ottoman fleet Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, c. 1572
Artist Paolo Veronese (1528 to 1588)
Where to see it Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
Medium Oil on canvas
Veronese made Lepanto a picture of two worlds. Below, the battle: galleys packed together in a haze of smoke, painted with a masterly play of tone and light. Above a curtain of cloud, Saints Peter, Roch, Justina and Mark implore the Virgin for victory, and an angel answers by hurling burning arrows at the Turkish ships. This small canvas was probably an ex-voto commissioned by Pietro Giustinian of Murano, who had fought in the battle, for the church of St Peter Martyr on Murano. It is a thank-offering from a survivor, painted around 1572.
The vessels At Lepanto on 7 October 1571 a Christian fleet of over 200 galleys, mainly Venetian and Spanish, defeated the Turkish fleet in the last great galley action.
Sources wga.hu · Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The galley fleets of the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto (fresco in the Sala Regia), 1572 to 1573
Artist Giorgio Vasari (1511 to 1574) and workshop
Where to see it Sala Regia, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City
Medium Fresco
In the Sala Regia, the hall of the Apostolic Palace built for receiving princes and royal ambassadors, the Battle of Lepanto takes its place among the turning points of Church history, painted by Giorgio Vasari and his assistants in 1572 to 1573. The fresco shows the two fleets drawn up for battle, long wings of galleys converging on the heavy ships at the centre. In front of them three figures, one wearing the papal tiara, join hands for the Holy League, while on the other side a skeleton Death with his scythe falls on the defeated. It is Lepanto as papal diplomacy, on the walls of the Vatican itself.
The vessels At Lepanto on 7 October 1571 a Christian fleet of over 200 galleys, with galleasses, defeated the Turkish fleet in the last great galley action.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Print
The Holy League and Ottoman fleets in battle order Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto (Navalis Victoriae exemplar), 1572
Artist Martin Rota (c. 1540 to 1583)
Where to see it Newberry Library, Chicago; another impression at the Real Academia Española
Medium Engraving
Published in Venice by Donato Bertelli in 1572, a year after the battle, Martin Rota's engraving claims to show the order of the whole fleet more faithfully than before, drawn, its Latin inscription says, from accounts of many who had fought there. It names the three commanders, Marcantonio Colonna of Rome, Don John of Austria and the Venetian Sebastiano Venier, and places the fight off the Echinades, not far from Naupactus. Prints like this spread the news of Lepanto across Europe and fixed the image of the battle as a vast clash of galley squadrons.
“Navalis Victoriae exemplar, qua Nonis Octobris ad scopulos Echinadum in Jonio”
The vessels The battle was fought on 7 October 1571 near the Echinades islands, not far from Naupactus (Lepanto), in the Ionian Sea, as the inscription records.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The galley fleets of the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, 7 October 1571, late 16th century
Artist Unidentified artist (signed 'HLETTER')
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0261)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lepanto was the last great galley action, fought after the loss of Cyprus by a Christian league of Venetian, Spanish, Papal and Genoese galleys under Don Juan of Austria, and remembered for its dead: about 25,000 Turks and 8,000 Christians. This late sixteenth-century canvas imagines it with a high horizon and a sea littered with galleys locked in combat. Italian inscriptions, some now fragmentary, name the protagonists, from Gian Andrea Doria and Marc'Antonio Colonna to Ali Pasha and the corsairs Caur Ali and Kara Hodja. It probably derives from a woodcut by Cristoforo Guerra published in Venice, and through the paint of its lower half an older heraldic cartouche shows.
“the last great galley action”
The vessels Galleys were long oared warships, the standard fighting ship of the Mediterranean; at Lepanto a Christian fleet of over 200 galleys met the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Lepanto, now Naupactos. The galleasses also shown were an attempt to combine a broadside of guns with oars.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The English fleet and the Spanish Armada Unnamed
Elizabeth I (the 'Armada Portrait'), c. 1588
Artist English School, 16th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (ZBA7719), displayed in the Queen's House
Medium Oil on oak panel
The most famous image of Elizabeth I is also a sea picture. Behind the queen, her hand on a globe, two views open on the Armada. On the left English fireships drift towards the Spanish fleet; on the right the Spanish ships are driven onto a rocky coast amid stormy seas by the Protestant Wind. Elizabeth turns her back on storm and darkness while sunlight shines where she gazes. The museum reads the contrast as the good Protestant government of England set against the despotic Catholic rule of Philip II. This version was bought for the nation in 2016 for £10.3 million and hangs in the Queen's House, on the site of her birthplace.
“the Armada wrecked by storms on the (mainly Irish) coast”
The vessels The Spanish Armada of 1588 was Philip II's great fleet against England; after the fireship attack off Calais and the Battle of Gravelines, storms wrecked many of its ships on the voyage home, mainly on the Irish coast.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Ark Royal and a Spanish galleass Named ship
English Ships and the Spanish Armada, August 1588
Artist English School, 16th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0262)
Medium Oil on poplar panel
Probably the Battle of Gravelines, and dateable to the years just after 1588, this panel is half record and half satire. At its centre a Spanish galleass flies the papal banner and the arms of Spain, crewed by sinister zealots led by a preaching monk, with a skeleton in a jester's costume aboard: a ship of fools. A distraught Spaniard, perhaps Philip II or Medina Sidonia, sits in a boat near her stern while monks disappear beneath the waves. Flanking her are the Ark Royal with the Elizabethan royal standard and another English ship, perhaps Drake's Revenge, painted with care and some accuracy of detail. Protestant England is laughing here as well as fighting.
“a death's head or skeleton in a jester's costume”
The real ship The Ark Royal was built by Chapman of Deptford for Sir Walter Raleigh as the Ark Raleigh and bought by the Crown in January 1587; Lord Howard's flagship against the Armada, she was renamed Anne Royal, rebuilt in 1608, lost in the Medway in 1636 and broken up in 1638. The four galleasses that reached the Channel all came from Naples.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: English School, 16th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
English fireships and the Spanish flagship Unnamed
Launch of Fireships against the Spanish Armada, 7 August 1588, c. 1590
Artist Aert Anthonisz (c. 1579 to 1620); Netherlandish school
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0263)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the night of 7 August 1588, with the Armada anchored off Calais, Drake sent in eight small ships packed with inflammables. Set alight among the Spanish fleet, they caused great confusion, and the Spanish cut their cables and never regained their anchorage. This contemporary Flemish interpretation shows the fireships running down on the Spanish fleet with the English fleet following, a sequence that did not actually happen, and a Spanish flagship in the left foreground fighting on both sides. Painted around 1590, it shows how quickly the night of the fireships became a story told in pictures across the North Sea.
“A contemporary Flemish interpretation of the launching of English fire-ships against the Spanish Armada.”
The vessels Fireships were expendable vessels packed with inflammables, set alight and sent among an enemy fleet; Drake's eight off Calais were small ships loosed against the anchored Armada.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
La Real and the Sultana Named ship
The Battle of Lepanto, c. 1603
Artist Andrea Vicentino (c. 1542 to 1617)
Where to see it Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace), Venice
Medium Oil on canvas
Andrea Vicentino, a painter from Vicenza who worked alongside Tintoretto in the Doge's Palace, painted Lepanto for the palace around the turn of the seventeenth century. The battle it commemorates turned on famous ships. Ali Pasha's Sultana drove into Don John of Austria's galley La Real as far as the fourth rowing bench, and only when Colonna came alongside were the Turks pushed back and their flagship boarded. Ahead of the Christian line, Venetian galleasses opened fire at close quarters on the foremost Turkish galleys and broke their array. It was the last major battle in the West fought almost entirely between rowing vessels.
The real ship La Real was Don John of Austria's galley and the Sultana that of Ali Pasha; the galleasses were large Venetian galleys with masts and sails in addition to oars, and substantial artillery.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Andrea Vicentino, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Spanish men-of-war and Barbary corsair galleys Unnamed
Spanish Men of War Engaging Barbary Corsairs, 1615
Artist Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom (1591 or 1592 to 1661)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0799)
Medium Oil on canvas
Through the seventeenth century North African corsairs threatened shipping in the Mediterranean, and sea fights with them became a popular subject for Dutch and Flemish painters. In this, the earliest known painting by Hendrick Vroom's son Cornelis, a Spanish ship engages corsair galleys marked by turbans and crescent moons. In the foreground a vessel has been hit and is sinking; her half-clad rowers, possibly slaves, struggle not to drown while men climb the rigging for safety and boats come to the rescue. The water is calm and the light warm and Italianate, so the horror is shown with perfect clarity. Vroom signed and dated it on the sinking ship's mast.
The vessels Barbary corsairs sailed from the North African coast in oared galleys and sailing ships, raiding merchant shipping; several European states sent punitive expeditions against them.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Aeolus and Roode Leeuw Named ship
Heemskerk's Defeat of the Spaniards at Gibraltar, 25 April 1607, c. 1619
Artist Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen (c. 1575 to 1633)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0265)
Medium Oil on canvas
At Gibraltar in 1607 some thirty Dutch ships under Jacob van Heemskerck destroyed a Spanish fleet in its own waters, the first major Dutch naval victory of the Eighty Years' War. Both admirals were killed. Van Wieringen, who probably studied under Hendrick Vroom, paints from a high viewpoint so that every detail can be read: Heemskerck's flagship the Aeolus, the Roode Leeuw, the Spanish Madre de Dios and San Augustin, sailors clinging to wreckage. This was his first independent painting of the battle and may have been commissioned by Heemskerck's family as a tribute to the dead admiral, yet it shows the action from the Spanish side, with the signature placed on a Spanish flag.
“some thirty Dutch vessels, under the command of Admiral Jacob van Heemskerk, defeated the Spanish fleet”
The real ship The Aeolus was Heemskerck's flagship at Gibraltar, where he was killed; the Roode Leeuw carried Vice Admiral Laurens Jacobsz Alteras. The Spanish fleet lost about 4,000 men.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The Holy League and Ottoman galley fleets Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, 1623
Artist Andries van Eertvelt (1590 to 1652)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts Ghent (MSK), S-88
Medium Oil paint
Van Eertvelt is regarded as the first Flemish marine painter, and his style owes as much to Pieter Bruegel the Elder as to the Dutch pioneer Hendrick Vroom. Half a century after Lepanto, in Antwerp, he painted the great Christian victory as a battle with the sea itself: tall ships labour under a storm-dark sky while in the foreground a broken galley is driven onto rocks and her men are flung into the surf among floating oars. Later in the decade he lived in Genoa with Cornelis de Wael, another painter of sea battles.
The vessels At Lepanto on 7 October 1571 the Holy League fleet under Don John of Austria defeated the Ottoman fleet in the last great galley action.
Image: Andries van Eertvelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Piet Hein's ship and the Spanish and Portuguese ships at Bahia Unnamed
Attack on San Salvador, c. 1624
Artist Andries van Eertvelt
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0268)
Medium Oil on panel
In 1624 a Dutch fleet sailed into the bay of San Salvador, a Portuguese city in Brazil. Eertvelt shows the entrance to the bay with Dutch and Spanish ships in action, Piet Hein's ship prominent on the right, forts being bombarded on the left and Spanish ships anchored under a steep city of church spires and rooftops. He adds four brightly coloured parakeets flying overhead, a painter's reminder that this was a war fought in the tropics. The composition probably derives from a 1624 etching by Claes Jansz Visscher, rearranged for drama.
The vessels The ships are those of the Dutch assault of 1624 on San Salvador in Portuguese Brazil, where Piet Hein personally led the attack on the sea fortress; the Dutch hold was brief, and a large Spanish and Portuguese fleet retook the city.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Andries van Eertvelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Haarlem (probably) and Spanish warships Named ship
An Engagement between the Spanish and the Dutch, c. 1630
Artist Cornelis Verbeeck
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0270)
Medium Oil on canvas
Verbeeck was born and died in Haarlem and is believed to have been a pupil of Hendrick Vroom, and paints the Eighty Years' War at sea as a cavalry charge on water. On a Dutch ship at the left a man in the stern blows a trumpet to sound the action while another brandishes a sword. To the right a Dutch flagship bearing the arms of Haarlem, perhaps the Haarlem herself, has trumpeters in her stern and men firing down onto the deck of her Spanish opponent. Wreckage and two flags in the foreground mark a sunken ship. It was once called the Battle of the Downs, but the painter had died before 1639.
“a man in the stern blows a trumpet to sound the action”
The real ship The ship bearing the arms of Haarlem on her stern was possibly named after the city; Dutch and Spanish warships fought repeatedly in the Channel and North Sea during the Eighty Years' War (1568 to 1648).
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Cornelis Verbeeck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The Anglo-Dutch fleet of Sir Edward Cecil in the Bay of Cádiz Unnamed
The Defence of Cádiz against the English (Defensa de Cádiz contra los ingleses), 1634
Artist Francisco de Zurbarán (1598 to 1664)
Where to see it Museo del Prado, Madrid (P006656)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in 1634 for the Hall of Realms of the Buen Retiro palace in Madrid, one of twelve battle pictures for the room, whose painters included Velázquez and Maíno, this canvas celebrates the repulse of Sir Edward Cecil's Anglo-Dutch attack on Cádiz in 1625. Zurbarán set the scene like a theatre: in front, the gouty governor Fernando Girón sits in black with his crutch and baton among his officers; behind, the bay spreads out with the attackers landing before the Puntal fort. The picture was long credited to Eugenio Cajés, until a record of payment to Zurbarán was published in 1945.
The vessels In 1625 an Anglo-Dutch fleet under Sir Edward Cecil attacked Cádiz and landed troops in the bay before the Puntal fort, where the Spanish defenders repelled them.
Sources Wikipedia (ES) · Wikidata
Image: Francisco de Zurbarán, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Dutch warship of Witte de With and Dunkirk privateers Unnamed
Witte de With's Action with Dunkirkers off Nieuwpoort, 1640, c. 1643
Artist Jacob Gerritsz Loeff
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0271)
Medium Oil on panel
Between 1625 and 1645 the Flanders fleet of Spain and its privateering auxiliaries, sailing from Dunkirk, dominated the North Sea. Loeff paints a single Dutch ship under her own flag and pendants attacked by five Dunkirk privateers flying the Burgundian ragged cross of the Spanish Netherlands. It probably records the 1640 fight in which Witte de With intercepted the Navarrese admiral Miguel de Horna and captured two Spanish vessels. The museum suggests it was commissioned by a merchant or shipowner whose property De With had saved, a painting of gratitude as much as of battle. Its companion piece probably shows the same encounter.
“The battle that ensued was long and bloody”
The vessels The Dunkirkers were the Flanders fleet of the Spanish Netherlands and its privateering auxiliaries, which dominated the North Sea between 1625 and 1645 and threatened Dutch trade.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Jacob Gerritsz Loeff, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles and Eendracht Named ship
The Battle of Lowestoft, 3 June 1665, Showing HMS 'Royal Charles' and the 'Eendracht', mid-17th century
Artist Hendrik van Minderhout (1632 to 1696)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0283)
Medium Oil on panel
Lowestoft was the first fleet action of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, with more than a hundred sail on each side. Minderhout paints the decisive duel from the Dutch point of view: the Royal Charles, with the Duke of York aboard and the royal crest carved on her stern, in close action with the Eendracht, her carved lion visible, just before the Dutch flagship blew up. Lieutenant Admiral van Wassenaer Obdam died with his ship. Probably painted shortly after the battle, the panel even gives the English flagship a Dutch stern with a square tuck and gallery, a small slip that tells you whose eyes were watching.
“Of a crew of over 400 only five survived.”
The real ship The Royal Charles was built by Peter Pett at Woolwich as the Naseby and renamed on 23 May 1660, when she carried Charles II home at the Restoration. The Eendracht, built at Rotterdam in 1653 and rated at 58 to 72 guns, was the principal Dutch flagship and blew up in action on 3 June 1665; of a crew of over 400 only five survived.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia · boijmans.nl
Image: Hendrik van Minderhout, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Leopard and Zon Named ship
The Battle of Leghorn, 4 March 1653
Artist Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman (c. 1623 to 1664)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0274)
Medium Oil on canvas
The First Anglo-Dutch War reached the Mediterranean at Leghorn, today Livorno. Captain Appleton, blockaded in port, sailed out too early and attacked before Badiley could join him. Nooms, called Zeeman, the Dutch word for sailor, after his rough early years at sea, shows the result: Appleton's Leopard fighting a losing battle between two Dutchmen, one of them the Zon, her sun emblem carved on the stern, with Leghorn in the background. Nooms signed the painting on the Zon's own flag. The Dutch won command of the Mediterranean that day, though their commodore Van Galen was mortally wounded.
The real ship The Leopard, Appleton's flagship, given 50 guns by the museum, was captured by the Dutch at Leghorn after 150 of her 200 men were killed or wounded. The Zon, 40 guns, commanded by Pieter van Zalingen in Van Galen's squadron, was subsequently sunk.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Reinier Nooms, called Zeeman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Resolution (ex-Prince Royal) and Brederode Named ship
The Battle of the Gabbard, 2 June 1653
Artist Heerman Witmont
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0276)
Medium Oil grisaille on oak panel (pen and brush in brown over graphite)
The Gabbard was fought off the Suffolk coast, Monck and Deane, joined on the second day by Blake, against Maarten Tromp. Witmont draws the flagships at the centre of it: the Resolution, 88 guns, the old Prince Royal renamed by the Commonwealth, against Tromp's Brederode, her carved stern dated 1645. This is pen painting, the technique Witmont pioneered with his friend Van de Velde the Elder: brown pigment laid with pen and brush over graphite on an off-white ground on oak, highly detailed. The signature floats on a spar in the lower right, among the wreckage.
The real ship The Resolution had been launched at Woolwich in 1610 as the Prince Royal, rebuilt in 1639 to 1641, renamed under the Commonwealth and renamed Royal Prince in 1660; she was burned by the Dutch in 1666. The Brederode, launched at Rotterdam in 1644, was Tromp's flagship until his death in 1653.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Heerman Witmont, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Brederode Named ship
The Battle of Scheveningen, 31 July 1653, c. 1654
Artist Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraten (1622 to 1666)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0278)
Medium Oil on canvas
Scheveningen ended the First Anglo-Dutch War and cost the Dutch their greatest admiral: Maarten Tromp was killed early in the fight by a sharpshooter in the rigging of an English ship. Beerstraten puts Tromp's Brederode at the heart of the canvas in furious action with English ships on both sides, a Dutch ship sinking in the foreground and Monck's Resolution fighting four Dutchmen beyond. Burning ships on the far right are probably the Andrew and the Triumph. Painted within a year or so of the battle, it is a flagship portrait made while the loss was still raw.
The real ship The Brederode was launched at Rotterdam in 1644 to a design by Jan Salomonsz van den Tempel and carried 49 to 59 guns. She fought at Dover, Dungeness, Portland, the Gabbard and Scheveningen, and at the Battle of the Sound on 8 November 1658 she was boarded and Witte de With was mortally wounded aboard her.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraten, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Andrew and Brederode Named ship
The Battle of Scheveningen, 10 August 1653, 1655
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0277)
Medium Oil on panel using pen and brush (grisaille)
Van de Velde the Elder watched this battle from a galliot, and he put himself into the picture: the seated figure in the left foreground, back to us, hat on, drawing block and pencil in hand. Around him he gathers several moments into one scene. The burning English Andrew is grappled by the Dutch fireship Fortune while her crew abandon ship, and beyond are Tromp's Brederode and Monck's Resolution. Tromp was killed early in the fight and the Dutch lost 15 ships, yet the artist presents it as a Dutch success. It is the rare battle picture signed, in effect, with the witness's own back.
“All this can be seen in the drawings made, as accurately as possible, in the heat of the battle.”
The real ship The Brederode was built at Rotterdam to a design by Jan Salomonsz van den Tempel and launched in 1644, carrying 49 to 59 guns. Tromp's flagship in the First Anglo-Dutch War, she was boarded and lost at the Battle of the Sound in 1658.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Santa Teresa Named ship
The Battle of the Downs, 1659
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1363)
Medium Pen painting (ink on canvas)
Twenty years after the event, the elder Van de Velde drew this pen painting in ink on canvas, his speciality, of the battle that made the Dutch navy's name. In 1639 a large Spanish fleet carrying troops and supplies to Flanders was intercepted in the Channel by Maarten Tromp with a much smaller force, and defeated when it took refuge in the Downs off the English coast. The Rijksmuseum singles out the capture of the Santa Teresa, the large Spanish warship burning on the left, as the emblem of the victory that established the Dutch fleet's formidable reputation.
The real ship The Santa Teresa was a large Spanish warship of the fleet sent to carry troops to Flanders in 1639; she was captured and is shown burning at the Battle of the Downs on 21 October 1639.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Eendracht Named ship
The Battle of the Sound, 8 November 1658, c. 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0280)
Medium Grisaille pen painting on canvas
In 1658 a Dutch fleet fought its way through the Sound to relieve Copenhagen from the Swedes, and Van de Velde the Elder was there to see it. He chose a low viewpoint so that the sky fills with sails, flags and pennants, outlined against clouds toned with grey washes, with Kronborg Castle on the Danish shore, where the Swedish king himself watched the battle. Wassenaer's Eendracht and the Swedish Carolus are among the ships, and in the foreground a Swedish ship sinks while her men stretch out their arms for rescue. He made eight known pen paintings of this one subject.
“arms outstretched beseeching”
The real ship The Eendracht was built at Rotterdam in 1653 and rated at 58 to 72 guns; at the Sound she carried Lieutenant Admiral van Wassenaer Obdam, who, paralysed by gout, directed the battle from an armchair on deck. She blew up at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665 with Obdam aboard.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia · boijmans.nl
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Dutch and English ships of the line Unnamed
An Action of the Four Days' Battle, 1 to 4 June 1666
Artist Lieve Pietersz Verschuier
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0288)
Medium Oil on panel
Royal Museums Greenwich calls the Four Days Battle the longest fleet action in naval history. Verschuier paints one episode as evening comes on, the sinking sun embedded behind the clouds turning the scene gold. An English ship under the red ensign, her sails full of shot holes and her fore topmast falling, fights a Dutch ship flying the triple prince flag of the Amsterdam Admiralty, while on the right a ship goes down and a small boat picks up her men. In the foreground a sailor reaches out with a boat hook to a man clinging to a sunken mast. Ferocity and a North Sea dusk share the same frame.
“the golden glow of the painting, with the sinking sun embedded behind the clouds”
The vessels The Four Days Battle of June 1666 set Albemarle's English fleet of 56 ships against De Ruyter's larger Dutch fleet in the southern North Sea.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Lieve Pietersz Verschuier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
De Zeven Provincien Named ship
Council of War aboard 'De Zeven Provincien', the Flagship of Michiel de Ruyter, 10 June 1666 (De krijgsraad aan boord van de 'De Zeven Provincien'), 1666 to 1693
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-4289)
Medium Ink on canvas (pen painting)
On the eve of the Four Days Battle De Ruyter called the commanders of his warships to his flagship, and Van de Velde the Elder recorded the gathering in one of his great pen paintings, 175 centimetres wide. The Zeven Provincien lies on the right, the white flag on her stern signalling the council, the flag and pennant at her main marking the admiral's ship, while sloops sail among the warships around her. To portray the battle that followed, the artist sailed for a time with De Ruyter's fleet. It is a picture of the quiet before a storm, the fleet assembled and waiting while its admirals decide.
The real ship De Zeven Provincien was built in 1664 to 1665 for the Admiralty of the Maze in Rotterdam by Salomon Jansz van den Tempel, with 80 guns. She was De Ruyter's flagship at the Four Days Battle, a command post during the raid on the Medway, and fought at Solebay, Schooneveld and the Texel; she was broken up in 1694 after severe damage at Barfleur and La Hogue.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Prince Named ship
The Four Days' Battle: the Burning of HMS Royal Prince, 3 June 1666
Artist Adriaen van Diest (1655 to 1704)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0290)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Royal Prince had served the English crown for more than half a century when she ran onto the Galloper Sand on the third day of the Four Days Battle. Surrounded by Dutch fireships, her crew panicked and Sir George Ayscue was forced to surrender to Tromp. De Ruyter, following standing orders, had her burned to prevent her recapture. Adriaen van Diest, a Hague-born painter who moved to London at seventeen, gives the end of this old great ship a canvas more than two metres wide, a funeral pyre on a shoal in the open sea.
The real ship Launched at Woolwich in 1610 as the Prince Royal, built by Phineas Pett, rebuilt in 1639 to 1641 and again in 1661 to 1663 as a 92-gun first-rate, renamed Resolution under the Commonwealth and Royal Prince in 1660. Burned by the Dutch on the Galloper Sand on 3 June 1666.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Adriaen van Diest, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles, Zeven Provincien and Royal Prince Named ship
The Four Days Fight, 1 to 4 June 1666
Artist Pieter Cornelisz van Soest (active 17th century)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0284)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Four Days Fight remains one of the longest naval battles in history, Albemarle with 56 ships against De Ruyter's larger fleet. Van Soest builds a panorama of it: two English two-deckers dying in the foreground, one on her beam ends with men clinging to the rigging, one burning with swimmers striking away. Beyond, Albemarle's Royal Charles engages De Ruyter's Zeven Provincien, while the Royal Prince fights Evertsen's Walcheren and Tromp's Hollandia shows her striped flags. For all the ships, two thirds of the canvas is sky, as if the battle were only weather passing over the North Sea.
The real ship The Royal Charles (ex-Naseby, built at Woolwich) was the English fleet flagship. The Zeven Provincien, built at Rotterdam in 1664 to 1665 with 80 guns, was De Ruyter's flagship through the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars and was broken up in 1694. The Royal Prince, launched at Woolwich in 1610 and rebuilt twice, was lost on the third day of this battle.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Pieter Cornelisz van Soest, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Dutch fleet at Chatham Unnamed
The Apotheosis of Cornelis de Witt, with the Dutch Raid on the Medway in the background, 1667 to 1700 (replica of a work of c. 1668)
Artist After Jan de Baen
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-4648)
Medium Oil on canvas
Cornelis de Witt sailed with the fleet that attacked Chatham as the representative of the States General, and Jan de Baen painted his apotheosis. He sits in fictitious dress among a cannon and a suit of armour, a horn of plenty spilling at his feet, an angel holding a victory wreath over his head and Fame sounding her trumpet, while the raid on the Medway is played out in the background. The ships are the proof of the glory. The larger original hung in the town hall of Dordrecht, where De Witt was burgomaster, and was destroyed in 1672, the year of his death; this replica preserves it.
The vessels The fleet in the background is De Ruyter's force that broke into the Medway in June 1667, burning English warships and capturing the Royal Charles.
Sources Rijksmuseum
Image: After Jan de Baen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles Named ship
The Arrival of the Royal Charles, 1667
Artist Jeronymus van Diest (II)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1389)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Rijksmuseum calls the Royal Charles the most powerful warship in the English fleet, and here she arrives as a trophy at the Dutch port of Hellevoetsluis. Her English flag is lowered to signify surrender. It is a portrait of a captured ship painted the same year she was taken, and it hangs in the same gallery as her ornately carved counter, which the Dutch preserved. Few paintings can be seen beside a real fragment of the vessel they show, and the pairing turns a naval humiliation into a lasting national keepsake.
“The Royal Charles was the most powerful warship in the English fleet.”
The real ship Built by Peter Pett at Woolwich as the Naseby and renamed Royal Charles at the Restoration, she was captured at Chatham on 12 June 1667, kept in drydock near Hellevoetsluis as a public attraction and auctioned for scrap in 1673. Her stern carving survives in the Rijksmuseum.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Dutch fleet in the Medway Unnamed
Burning of the English Fleet near Chatham, 19 to 24 June 1667, 1667 to 1678
Artist Willem Schellinks (1623 to 1678)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1393)
Medium Oil on canvas
Schellinks travelled through England and much of Europe between 1661 and 1665, and he used his drawings of England as the basis for his paintings of the raid on the Medway. The view opens like a map: Fort Sheerness below left in Dutch hands, the ring of English ships sunk to block the river with only their masts showing, and the Dutch fleet breaking through towards Chatham, with Rochester to the right and London far off in the distance. The painting shows how a navy's own defences became the setting of its humiliation, and how an artist's peacetime travel sketches became a victory picture.
The vessels The Dutch fleet under Michiel de Ruyter took the fort at Sheerness and sailed up the Medway to Chatham, England's principal naval base, in June 1667, burning English warships and capturing the Royal Charles.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia · Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where the original is kept. Photo: Whythealgarve, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles Named ship
Dutch Attack on the Medway, 9 to 14 June 1667
Artist Pieter van den Velde and Jan Peeters
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0293)
Medium Oil on panel
While the peace talks dragged on, England left its fleet laid up, partly as a gesture of peaceful intent, and the Dutch mobilised in secret. This panel celebrates what followed. In the right foreground the captured Royal Charles still wears her English jack and ensign, yet jubilant Dutchmen have just hoisted their own flag at her main and wave their hats. Around them English ships burn and a sunken ship shows only her ensign and mast tops, while a line of Dutch warships waits beyond. It is a painting of pure jubilation for a raid that won the Dutch much better terms at Breda.
The real ship The Royal Charles, given 86 guns by the museum, was built at Woolwich as the Naseby and renamed at the Restoration; she was captured at Chatham on 12 June 1667, taken to Hellevoetsluis and auctioned for scrap in 1673.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Pieter van den Velde and Jan Peeters, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles Named ship
Dutch Attack on the Medway, June 1667
Artist Pieter Cornelisz van Soest (active 17th century)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0295)
Medium Oil on canvas
Van Soest, a specialist in panoramic battles of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, paints the raid as the execution of Johan de Witt's bold plan. The Royal Charles appears just after her capture, while all through the middle ground English ships are set alight by fireships and the masts of scuttled ships stand up out of the river on the left. His foreground is quieter and harder: figures escaping from the ships and survivors struggling in the water. It is the Dutch triumph seen at the level of the men who paid for it.
The real ship The Royal Charles, built at Woolwich as the Naseby and renamed at the Restoration, was captured uncommissioned at Chatham on 12 June 1667 and taken to Hellevoetsluis, where she was auctioned for scrap in 1673.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Pieter Cornelisz van Soest, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Charles Named ship
Dutch Attack on the Medway: the 'Royal Charles' Carried into Dutch Waters, 12 June 1667
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0292)
Medium Oil on canvas
Her capture was a particular humiliation for the English. The Royal Charles had been the Naseby of the Commonwealth, renamed by Charles II when she brought him home at the Restoration, and in June 1667 the Dutch took her at Chatham. Bakhuizen shows her brought into Hellevoetsluis in triumph, under small sail at the centre, a Dutch States yacht flying a white flag with an anchor beside her and a man-of-war flying the Dutch colours. The royal coat of arms on her stern is painted with care, and fittingly: that carving is largely preserved today in the Rijksmuseum.
The real ship Built by Peter Pett at Woolwich as the Naseby, an 80-gun first-rate, she was renamed Royal Charles on 23 May 1660 and carried Charles II from Scheveningen to Dover. Captured uncommissioned at Chatham on 12 June 1667, she was kept at Hellevoetsluis as a public attraction and auctioned for scrap in 1673; her stern carving is in the Rijksmuseum.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
English warships at Chatham Unnamed
The Dutch Burning English Ships during the Dutch Raid on the Medway, 20 June 1667, 1667 to 1669
Artist Jan van Leyden
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1386)
Medium Oil on panel
For the English, the museum notes, the Dutch attack came as a complete surprise. Two ships were captured and six large warships burned, set alight by fireships sent blazing among them. Jan van Leyden paints that moment: crews leaping overboard from the burning English ships while, in the foreground, Dutch marines land on the shore. The picture is direct, closer to a news report than to a triumph, and it belongs to the Rijksmuseum, which also keeps the carved stern of the Royal Charles itself.
“For the English, the Dutch attack came as a complete surprise.”
The vessels Six large English warships were burned at Chatham in June 1667, set alight by Dutch fireships, and two ships were captured, among them the Royal Charles.
Sources Rijksmuseum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Zeven Provincien and Huis te Oosterwijk Named ship
Dutch Attack on Harwich, July 1667, 1669
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0296)
Medium Grisaille pen painting on canvas
A month after the Medway, De Ruyter turned on Harwich, and the attempt failed: the bombardment of Landguard Fort was ineffective and the troops had to embark again. Van de Velde the Elder, who had sailed officially with Dutch fleets since 1653, drew the fleet at anchor off Harwich before the landing, each ship identifiable by the carving on her stern: De Ruyter's Zeven Provincien, and the Amsterdam ship Huis te Oosterwijk with a country house and a lake painted on her taffrail. Then, in the foreground, three porpoises, which the museum notes were known in great numbers off that coast.
“a country house and lake or moat painted on her tafferel”
The real ship De Zeven Provincien, built at Rotterdam in 1664 to 1665 with 80 guns, was De Ruyter's flagship in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars and was broken up in 1694. The Huis te Oosterwijk was an Amsterdam ship bearing the arms of Amsterdam with lion supporters.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Hampshire and Spiegel Named ship
Beach and Van Ghent Destroy Six Barbary Ships near Cape Spartel, Morocco, 17 August 1670
Artist Style of Willem van de Velde
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0298)
Medium Oil on canvas
For once the English and Dutch were on the same side. In August 1670 Commodore Richard Beach's English squadron joined the Dutch admiral Van Ghent off Cape Spartel in Morocco to cut off six Algerine corsairs, which ran themselves ashore and were burned. Sir Thomas Allin's account counts the reward in people: 250 Christian captives released. Five English ships under the red ensign fill the foreground, the flagship Hampshire among the Portsmouth, Jersey, Foresight and Centurion, while Van Ghent's Spiegel lies at anchor to the right. A grisaille scroll in the corner repeats the whole scene in miniature, like a caption.
The real ship The Hampshire was Beach's flagship and the Spiegel Van Ghent's; the six Algerine men-of-war, driven ashore near Cape Spartel, were set on fire after the English boats had freed as many Christian captives as they could.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Style of Willem van de Velde, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Prince Named ship
The Capture of the Royal Prince (De verovering van het Engelse admiraalsschip de Royal Prince), c. 1670
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-438)
Medium Oil on canvas
For the Dutch, the taking of the English flagship on 13 June 1666, the third day of the Four Days Battle, was a great prize. The Royal Prince had run aground on a sandbank off the English coast, and Cornelis Tromp captured her and transferred her crew to his own ship, the Gouda, seen at the left. Van de Velde paints a moment of triumph that carries its own sadness: Tromp would have preferred to tow the prize back to the Netherlands, but De Ruyter ordered him to burn her where she lay.
The real ship Built by Phineas Pett at Woolwich and launched in 1610, twice rebuilt and carrying 92 guns from 1663, the Royal Prince grounded on the Galloper Sand on 3 June (13 June new style) 1666, surrendered to Cornelis Tromp and was burned on De Ruyter's orders.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Mathias and Carolus V Named ship
The Dutch Raid on the Medway, 1667, c. 1670
Artist Anonymous, Low Countries
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-307)
Medium Oil on panel
An unknown Dutch painter sets the raid in Gillingham Reach, downstream of Chatham and below Upnor Castle, where the English fleet lay moored above what proved an ineffectual boom. To left and right the guardships Mathias and Carolus V, both Dutch prizes taken in earlier wars, are grappled and fired by the Dutch fireships Pro Patria and Schiedam, while English frigates burn beyond and the Royal Oak lies half-scuttled. In the foreground Dutch mariners attack their fleeing opponents. The Rijksmuseum calls it a fanciful depiction, but its mood is true: a humiliation for the Royal Navy, seen through Dutch eyes.
The real ship The guardships Mathias and Carolus V had both been captured from the Dutch, in 1653 and 1665 respectively, and were set on fire by Dutch fireships during the raid of June 1667.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where the original is kept. Photo: Whythealgarve, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Prince Named ship
The 'Royal Prince' and other Vessels at the Four Days Battle, 1 to 4 June 1666, c. 1670
Artist Abraham Storck (1644 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0286)
Medium Oil on canvas
Storck folds several days of fighting into one furious frame. In the left foreground rises the stern of De Ruyter's Zeven Provincien, the Dutch lion and provincial arms carved on it and 'Anno 1665' on the rail, the year she was launched. On the right the great Royal Prince sits aground on the Galloper Sand, her Stuart arms still proud on the stern as smoke pours from both ships. Between them the Royal Charles has her mainmast shot through. In the foreground an English ship goes down and boats row in for survivors. The museum calls it a rare battle piece by a painter better known for yachts and ceremonies.
“tempestuous and tranquil seascapes”
The real ship The Prince Royal was built by Phineas Pett at Woolwich and launched in 1610, rebuilt in 1639 to 1641 and again in 1661 to 1663 as a 92-gun first-rate, renamed Resolution under the Commonwealth and Royal Prince at the Restoration. Aground on the Galloper Sand on 3 June 1666, she surrendered to Tromp and De Ruyter ordered her burned.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The fleets of Octavian and of Antony and Cleopatra Unnamed
The Battle of Actium, 2 September 31 BC, 1672
Artist Laureys a Castro (1644 to c. 1700)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0251)
Medium Oil on canvas
Actium decided the Roman world: Octavian's fleet under Agrippa against Mark Antony and Cleopatra, whose squadron withdrew to the open sea, and the victory marked Rome's turn from republic to empire. Laureys a Castro, an Antwerp painter then working in England, made this dramatic Baroque interpretation in 1672, his earliest known dated work. His galleys are squat like Dutch fluyts rather than long and slender, crewed by soldiers in plumed helmets. Cleopatra, in seventeenth-century dress, raises her arms in despair from an ornate barge, and beside her stands a naked Fortune on a globe with her billowing sail.
The vessels At Actium on 2 September 31 BC Octavian's fleet of about 400 galleys, largely smaller Liburnian vessels, defeated the heavier quinqueremes and quadriremes of Antony; the victory made Octavian master of the Roman world.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Laureys a Castro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal James Named ship
The Burning of the Royal James at the Battle of Solebay, 28 May 1672
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0302)
Medium Oil on canvas
Solebay opened the Third Anglo-Dutch War, when De Ruyter fell on the allied fleet at anchor in Southwold Bay. The Royal James, flagship of the Earl of Sandwich, fought Van Ghent's squadron and sank two fireships before a third, the Vrede, grappled her and set her ablaze. Van de Velde lets the flagship dominate the right of the canvas as men leap overboard or cling to the rigging, while De Ruyter's Zeven Provincien fights the Royal Sovereign beyond. Sandwich tried to escape by boat, but it was swamped and he drowned. The picture belongs to the years when father and son had just come to England, where they founded the English school of marine painting.
The real ship Launched at Portsmouth Dockyard on 31 March 1671 to a design by Anthony Deane, the Royal James carried about 100 guns. She was destroyed by fire from Dutch fireships at Solebay on 28 May (7 June new style) 1672, barely a year old.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Tiger Named ship
HMS Tiger Attacked by Eight Dutch Privateers, 26 August 1672
Artist Daniel Schellinks
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0304)
Medium Oil on canvas
Not every fight of the Anglo-Dutch wars was a fleet battle. After Solebay, Captain Thomas Harman in the Tiger was escorting colliers along the east coast to the Thames when eight Dutch privateers fell on him, and he fought them off. Daniel Schellinks paints an action of the war from above: a ship on the far right, perhaps the Tiger, encircled by Dutch vessels and firing back, lines of English and Dutch ships in the middle distance and probably the Dutch coast beyond. The painting's unusual proportions suggest it was cut down at some point, a small wound in the history of a picture about a small, stubborn victory.
The real ship The Tiger, commanded by Captain Thomas Harman, was an English warship on convoy duty protecting coal merchant ships on the east coast in 1672.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Daniel Schellinks, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Gouden Leeuw and Royal Prince Named ship
Encounter during the Battle of Kijkduin (Nachtelijk gevecht tussen Cornelis Tromp op de 'Gouden Leeuw' en Sir Edward Spragg op de 'Royal Prince'), c. 1675
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-2393)
Medium Oil on canvas
Kijkduin is the Dutch name for the Texel, and this is its most personal duel: Cornelis Tromp in the Gouden Leeuw against Sir Edward Spragge in the Royal Prince, old enemies, Spragge having publicly sworn to kill or capture Tromp. The painting is traditionally called the Nocturnal Battle, yet the fight of 21 August 1673 took place in daylight; it only looks like night because the ships are half-hidden in smoke and gunpowder fumes. Each admiral had to shift his flag to fresh ships three times, and on the third Spragge drowned when his boat sank. It is a Dutch episode painted by a Dutchman who had settled in England the year before the battle.
The real ship The Gouden Leeuw, built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 with 80 to 82 guns, was Tromp's flagship and was broken up in 1686. The Royal Prince was Spragge's 100-gun flagship, dismasted in this action.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Drawing
Mary Rose Named ship
The 'Mary Rose' Action, 8 to 18 December 1669, c. 1675
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH3905)
Medium Graphite and grey wash
In December 1669 Captain John Kempthorne in the Mary Rose, on convoy duty in the Mediterranean, was attacked by seven Algerine corsairs; with the help of only the ketch Roe he drove them off and the whole convoy was saved. Hollar etched the action for Ogilby's Africa in 1670. Van de Velde the Younger based this well-finished drawing on that print, adding more smoke and making the ships more accurate, and drew the Mary Rose broadside at the centre with merchantmen and corsairs around her, each keyed by a letter. He made another version with a low horizon, and his final painting is now in the Royal Collection.
“Captain John Kempthorne in the ‘Mary Rose’ was attacked by seven Algerine corsairs”
The real ship The Mary Rose of Kempthorne's action was an English warship of the Restoration navy escorting a merchant convoy in the Mediterranean in 1669; she beat off seven Algerine corsairs with the help of the ketch Roe.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Royal Prince Named ship
The Battle of the Texel, 11 to 21 August 1673, c. 1680
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0314)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Texel was the last battle of the Third Anglo-Dutch War and the allies' final attempt to destroy the Dutch fleet and leave the coast free for an invasion of Holland. Van de Velde centres the canvas on Sir Edward Spragge's Royal Prince, main and mizzen masts gone, still firing her starboard guns while Tromp's flagship fires into her from the left foreground and a Dutch fireship burns ahead. Around them float a barrel, wreckage, clinging men and rescue boats. Over it all the artist lays a golden sunset, smoke rising into parting clouds, so that the violence ends in something close to peace. He signed it on the floating barrel.
The real ship The Royal Prince was a 100-gun first-rate and flagship of Spragge at the Texel, where Tromp attacked her repeatedly with gunfire and fireships and she lost her main and mizzen masts. Tromp's flagship at the start of the battle, the Gouden Leeuw, was built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 and broken up in 1686.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Gouden Leeuw and Royal Prince Named ship
The Goulden Leeuw Engaging Royal Prince at the Battle of the Texel, 11 August 1673, late 17th century
Artist Abraham Storck (1644 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0307)
Medium Oil on canvas
Storck gives the Texel its personal duel: Cornelis Tromp, commanding the Dutch rear squadron, against Sir Edward Spragge, admiral of the allied rear. Tromp's Gouden Leeuw fills the centre nearly stern on, flying his double prince flag, while the port bow of the Royal Prince pushes out through the gun smoke, her mizzen still standing early in the action. The Olifant fights on the far left, the Hollandia beyond, and a fireship burns itself out in the foreground. Storck was a painter of people as much as rigging, and the water here is full of them: men in the sea and clinging to a sunken mast while boats work to pull them out.
The real ship The Gouden Leeuw was built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666, carried 80 to 82 guns, served as Tromp's flagship in the Third Anglo-Dutch War and was broken up in 1686. The Royal Prince, 100 guns, was Spragge's flagship at the Texel.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The English, French and Dutch fleets Unnamed
The First Battle of Schooneveld, 28 May 1673, 1684
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0305)
Medium Grisaille (pen and brush on canvas)
At Schooneveld, a narrow basin at the mouth of the Schelde, De Ruyter with 52 ships faced 79 English ships and the French under Prince Rupert and the Comte d'Estrees. Van de Velde the Elder watched from an English ketch, which he marked in the picture as his own boat: it was the first battle he observed and recorded from the English side. He drew it eleven years later from drawings made at the time, from a high viewpoint so that the action at about four in the afternoon can be read ship by ship, and signed it with his age: 'W V Velde f.1684 oudt. 73 Jaren'. An old eyewitness, still drawing the fleets he had followed.
“the first battle that he observed and recorded from the English side”
The vessels At the First Battle of Schooneveld on 28 May 1673 the Dutch fleet under De Ruyter in the Zeven Provincien fought the Anglo-French fleet under Prince Rupert in the Royal Charles and the Comte d'Estrees in La Reine; the battle lasted nine hours and no English ship was lost.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Gouden Leeuw and Royal Prince Named ship
The Battle of the Texel, 11 August 1673, 1685
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0346)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bakhuizen, a German calligrapher turned Amsterdam marine painter, stages the Texel twelve years after the event through its small boats. In the foreground men fight hand to hand from open boats with oars, daggers and cutlasses, exhausted sailors are hauled from the water and hats float among the debris. Behind them an English ship has lost her mast and a Dutch ship, thought to be Tromp's Gouden Leeuw, fights off the English. Bakhuizen painted his name on the side of one boat and the date on its stern, as if signing the human scale of the battle rather than its admirals.
The real ship The Gouden Leeuw, built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 with 80 to 82 guns, was Tromp's first flagship at the Texel and was broken up in 1686. The dismasted English ship may be Spragge's Royal Prince of 100 guns or Chicheley's Charles of 96 guns.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Tapestry
Royal James Named ship
The Solebay Tapestries: The Fleets Drawn up for Battle and The Burning of the Royal James, after 1685
Artist Designed by Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693), woven by Thomas Poyntz at Mortlake
Where to see it Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam
Medium Tapestry
Van de Velde the Elder watched Solebay from a Dutch sailing boat. After he settled in England, Charles II around 1672 and James II in 1685 commissioned tapestries of the battle, and he adapted his drawings to show it from the English side. Het Scheepvaartmuseum's purchase of two, the largest acquisition in its history, brought home the fleets drawn up for battle and the burning of the Royal James later in the day, the English flagship destroyed by a Dutch fireship. Of the twelve made, they are the only examples on display outside the United Kingdom. A Solebay tapestry of the burning Royal James also hangs in the Queen's House at Greenwich.
“The Stuarts saw the Battle of Solebay as their own Armada”
The real ship The Royal James, a first-rate of about 100 guns, was launched at Portsmouth in 1671 and burned by Dutch fireships at Solebay on 28 May (7 June new style) 1672; the Earl of Sandwich drowned escaping her.
Sources hetscheepvaartmuseum.com · Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam, where the original is kept. Photo: Rudolphous, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Gouden Leeuw Named ship
The 'Gouden Leeuw' at the Battle of the Texel, 21 August 1673, 1687
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0315)
Medium Oil on canvas
This is the largest of Van de Velde's many paintings of the Texel and, for Royal Museums Greenwich, one of his greatest achievements. Cornelis Tromp's Gouden Leeuw dominates the centre, the lion on her stern, firing to port and starboard at once, the double prince striped flag at her main. Around her the Charles loses her mizzen topmast, the Royal Prince is battered and an English ship sinks with boats closing on her survivors. The ship's prominence points to a Dutch commission, and the picture reads as a portrait of a flagship celebrated as a symbol of national pride.
“Battle at Sea. Very fine”
The real ship The Gouden Leeuw was built for the Admiralty of Amsterdam in 1666 and carried 80 to 82 guns. She was Tromp's flagship at the Texel, became unmanageable so that he shifted his flag to the Comeetstar, and was broken up in 1686.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Swiftsure, Convertine and Loyal George as Dutch prizes Named ship
Dutch Ships Returning with their Prizes to Goeree after the Four Days Battle, 4 June 1666, late 17th or early 18th century
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707), studio or follower
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0289)
Medium Oil on canvas
After the battle comes the procession. Dutch warships bring captured English ships into the Haringvliet, the estuary of the Maas between Goeree and Hellevoetsluis, the Wassenaer firing a salute on the left. The prizes are recognisable by their red ensigns flown beneath Dutch colours: the Convertine, the Swiftsure, the Loyal George. The Hollandia, Tromp's flagship until a collision on the first day dismasted her, comes home too. It is a quiet estuary scene, yet every flag in it tells of defeat and victory, and the museum sees it as a variant of the last of four paintings of the battle at Knowsley Hall.
The real ship The Swiftsure, 64 guns, under Sir William Berkeley, fell into Dutch hands on the second day of the Four Days Battle; the Loyal George was taken on the first day and the Convertine was captured by the Wassenaer.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Soleil Royal Named ship
The Battle of La Hogue, 1778
Artist Benjamin West (1738 to 1820)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1692 an English and Dutch fleet won a decisive victory off the coast of Normandy, thwarting an expected French invasion of England. West, the Pennsylvania-born painter who had made his name in London with The Death of General Wolfe, condensed the complex events into one dramatic composition with poetic licence. Admiral George Rooke stands upright in a boat on the left, sword raised, and in the background the great French flagship Soleil Royal is being run aground. Painted in 1778, when Britain and France were again at war, it turned an old victory into a call to arms.
The real ship The Soleil Royal was built at Brest by Laurent Hubac and launched in 1669; Tourville's flagship, she carried 104 guns at Barfleur in 1692. Too damaged to reach Brest, she was beached at Cherbourg, and on the night of 2 to 3 June a fireship set her stern alight and the fire reached her powder rooms.
Sources Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
San Martin and Ark Royal Named ship
Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 8 August 1588, 1796
Artist Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740 to 1812)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0264)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two centuries after the event, Loutherbourg painted Gravelines like the stage designer he was. In 1779 he had staged the Armada battle as a spectacular scene at Drury Lane, and here light and colour do the same work. English sailors fight their way into the beak of a Spanish ship silhouetted against flame and smoke; Medina Sidonia's San Martin flies the papal and Spanish standards; men in full armour fight beside others armed only with oars; a monk stands arms wide in a doomed pinnace. From the right comes the Ark Royal, bearing Elizabeth's arms.
“in 1779 he designed a staging of the Armada battle as a spectacular scene”
The real ship The San Martin was the Portuguese galleon Sao Martinho, completed by 1580 with 48 heavy guns and chosen as the Duke of Medina Sidonia's flagship; badly damaged at Gravelines, she led the Armada home and was towed into Santander. The Ark Royal was Lord Howard's flagship.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Philip James de Loutherbourg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Marie la Cordelière and the Regent Named ship
The Fight of the Cordelière against the English Fleet (Combat soutenu par Hervé de Portzmoguer contre une flotte anglaise), 1838
Artist Pierre-Julien Gilbert (1783 to 1860)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest (876.2.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Off Brest on 10 August 1512 the English fleet surprised a Franco-Breton fleet at anchor. By accident some three hundred guests, some of them women, were visiting the Breton flagship Marie la Cordelière, and her captain Hervé de Portzmoguer had no time to put them ashore. She covered the retreat of the rest, grappled the English Regent and her men swarmed aboard, until the Cordelière suddenly exploded; the flames spread and both ships blew up and sank. Gilbert paints the two great ships locked together in fire and smoke, small boats in the foreground and a tower on the headland beyond.
The real ship Marie la Cordelière, of about 1,000 tons, and the English Regent, of 600 tons, were each navy's largest and most powerful ship. Both were destroyed on 10 August 1512 near Brest; only 20 of the Cordelière's 1,250 men and 60 of the Regent's 460 were saved.
Image: Pierre-Julien Gilbert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
A war galley at Lepanto Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto, 1848
Artist Ernest Slingeneyer (1820 to 1894)
Where to see it Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
Medium Oil on canvas
After the success of his Sinking of the Vengeur, the young Slingeneyer received a large history commission from the Belgian government and chose Lepanto, the victory of 7 October 1571 in the Gulf of Patras. He set the fight on the stern of a galley, a crescent-topped lantern above the rail, armoured Christian commanders standing firm at the centre while the struggle surges around them. When the canvas was finally shown in 1848 it fell short of expectations: the public was tiring of the history painting of the Antwerp Academy, and Brussels painters were winning favour with a less theatrical Romanticism. It is a picture of a battle and also of the end of a taste.
The vessels At Lepanto the fleet of the Holy League, led by the Venetian Republic and the Spanish Empire, inflicted a major defeat on the Ottoman fleet in the Gulf of Patras.
Image: Ernest Slingeneyer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Greek and Persian fleets at Salamis Unnamed
The Battle of Salamis (Die Seeschlacht bei Salamis), late career, before 1874
Artist Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1805 to 1874)
Where to see it Maximilianeum, Munich
Medium Oil on canvas
In 480 BC the Greek fleet under Themistocles defeated the Persian navy in the narrow straits of Salamis, while Xerxes watched from a throne set up on the slopes of Mount Aigaleo. Kaulbach, among his late works, painted the sea fight on a vast canvas more than thirty feet long for the Maximilianeum in Munich, a composition of his usual imagination and facility. A battle of hundreds of ramming ships crammed into a strait suits a canvas on that scale. It is the nineteenth century's grand vision of the sea fight that turned back the Persian invasion.
The vessels Herodotus gives 378 triremes for the allied Greek fleet at Salamis, some contingents including penteconters, against a Persian fleet he numbered at 1,207 triremes.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Scottish mercenary transports in Isfjorden, 1612 Unnamed
The Landing of Sinclair in Romsdal (Sinclairs landing i Romsdal), 1876
Artist Adolph Tidemand (1814 to 1876) and Morten Müller (1828 to 1911)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.00796)
Medium Oil on canvas
In August 1612, during the Kalmar War, two ships carrying Scottish mercenaries for the Swedish army sailed from Dundee and Caithness, met in Orkney and landed their men in Isfjorden in Romsdal. The Scots marched inland and were ambushed at Kringen, and Captain George Sinclair's name passed into ballad and legend. Tidemand and Morten Müller paint the landing itself: boats run onto the stony shore and armed men, women and baggage come ashore, while the sailing ships ride at anchor out in the misty fjord beneath the mountains. The ships are small, but they carry the whole tragedy.
The vessels The two transports sailed from Dundee and Caithness in early August 1612, met in Orkney and landed the force in Isfjorden on 20 August; the soldiers then marched inland and were defeated at Kringen.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikipedia
Image: Adolph Tidemand, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles to 1700 · Painting
Don John of Austria's galley Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto (La Batalla de Lepanto), 1887
Artist Juan Luna (1857 to 1899)
Where to see it Palacio del Senado, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
The Filipino painter Juan Luna, famous for his Spoliarium, was commissioned by the Spanish Senate, through the influence of Alfonso XII, to paint Lepanto as a companion to Pradilla's Surrender of Granada. He shows Don John of Austria in battle at the bow of his ship. The widowed Queen Regent Maria Christina unveiled it in the Senate Hall in November 1887, and the next year it won a gold medal at the Barcelona exhibition. A painter from the Philippines, then under Spanish rule, gave Madrid one of its grandest images of the victory.
The vessels Don John of Austria, half-brother of Philip II, commanded the Holy League fleet from his galley La Real at Lepanto on 7 October 1571.
Sources Wikipedia
Battles to 1700 · Painting
The galley fleets at Lepanto Unnamed
The Battle of Lepanto and World Map (Repanto sentōzu, sekai chizu byōbu), six-fold screens, Azuchi-Momoyama period
Artist Unknown Japanese painter
Where to see it Kosetsu Museum of Art, Kobe (Important Cultural Property)
Medium Colour on paper, six-fold screens
The most unexpected Lepanto of all is in Japan. Six-fold screens in colour on paper set the Battle of Lepanto beside a map of the world, and the Kosetsu Museum, founded on the collection of Murayama Ryōhei, founder of the Asahi Shimbun, counts them among its treasures. On the battle screen the fighting has come ashore, cavalry and even war elephants clashing in the foreground, while behind them tall ships under red cross flags and long galleys cross a patterned blue sea beneath golden clouds. A Mediterranean battle, fought on the other side of the world, becomes a painted spectacle for a Japanese room.
The vessels The screens take their title from the battle of 7 October 1571, when the Holy League fleet defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto; the ships shown are three-masted sailing ships and oared galleys.
Sources Wikipedia (JA) · Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Torbay breaking the boom, with the Zeven Provincien and HMS Royal Sovereign Named ship
The Battle of Vigo Bay, 12 October 1702
Artist Ludolf Bakhuizen (1630 to 1708)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2216)
Medium Oil on canvas
After six weeks of failure before Cadiz, Admiral Sir George Rooke's Anglo-Dutch fleet learned on its way home that a Spanish treasure fleet lay in Vigo Bay behind a boom of masts. Bakhuizen shows the opening of the action from the south shore, troops landing in the foreground while Hopsonn's Torbay, broadside on and firing her bow chasers, is about to break the boom, the Dutch Zeven Provincien behind her. The fleet flagship Royal Sovereign dominates the left under her red ensign, though, as Greenwich notes, she took no part. It is a painting of nerve and of a rich prize.
The real ship Torbay, 80 guns, carried Admiral Thomas Hopsonn through the boom at Vigo on 12 October 1702; the Anglo-Dutch fleet following astern captured every ship not already burnt by the French, with considerable treasure.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Ludolf Bakhuizen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
British fleet off Bastia Unnamed
The Bombardment of Bastia, 6 November 1745, 18th century
Artist Samuel Scott (c. 1702 to 1772)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0367)
Medium Oil on canvas
Samuel Scott, who specialised in marine painting and views of London, here looks down on Bastia from a commanding height, with the Corsican port and its high wooded hills spread out below. The British fleet has closed in on the harbour during the War of the Austrian Succession and the town has already caught fire. The museum admires how Scott's light falls on fleet and town alike, sharpening the architecture, while a subtle scheme of greens and browns holds this coastal landscape together, so that the bombardment reads as part of a quiet panorama.
The vessels A British fleet bombarded and occupied the Corsican port of Bastia in 1745, during the War of the Austrian Succession, 1740 to 1748.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Tri Ierarkha and the burning Ottoman fleet Named ship
The Burning of the Turkish Fleet in Chesma Bay (Sozhzhenie turetskogo flota v Chesmenskoi bukhte), 1771
Artist Jacob Philipp Hackert (1737 to 1807)
Where to see it Chesma Hall, Grand Palace, Peterhof State Museum Reserve, Peterhof
Medium Oil on canvas
Catherine the Great ordered a whole cycle of the Chesma victory from Hackert, a landscape painter living in Italy who was no battle painter. Participants in the battle, above all Count Alexei Orlov, criticised the inaccuracies of his night scene, and he explained that he had never seen a ship burn and explode. In 1771, on the Empress's instruction, the old 60-gun frigate Sviataya Varvara was blown up in the roads at Livorno before a crowd of thousands so that he could see one. This canvas for the Chesma Hall still has the moon over the burning bay; the corrected version went to the Winter Palace and is now in the Hermitage.
The real ship On the night of 25 to 26 June 1770 (Old Style) the Russian fleet under Count Alexei Orlov broke into Chesma Bay and destroyed the anchored Ottoman fleet with fireships and gunfire. Orlov flew his flag in the 66-gun ship of the line Tri Ierarkha, and the Ottoman commander's 100-gun flagship blew up.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Jacob Philipp Hackert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Sviatoi Evstafii Named ship
The Destruction of the Russian Ship Sviatoi Evstafii in the Battle of Chios (Gibel russkogo korablya Svyatoi Evstafii), 1771 to 1772
Artist Jacob Philipp Hackert (1737 to 1807)
Where to see it Chesma Hall, Grand Palace, Peterhof State Museum Reserve, Peterhof
Medium Oil on canvas
Part of the twelve-canvas Chesma cycle that was set into the walls of the Chesma Hall at Peterhof in 1778 and 1779, this picture tells of the price paid a day and a half before the great victory. In the Chios Strait Admiral Spiridov's flagship Sviatoi Evstafii fought at close range with the Ottoman Real Mustafa; the burning mainmast of the Turkish ship fell across her deck and she blew up. Hackert shows the aftermath beside the fighting line: a ship ablaze, and men struggling in the water around a floating Russian ensign.
The real ship Sviatoi Evstafii was the flagship of Admiral Grigory Spiridov at the Battle of Chios on 5 July 1770 (New Style). In a close fight with the Ottoman Real Mustafa, whose burning mainmast fell on her deck, she blew up with the loss of 636 men; the Ottoman fleet then withdrew into Chesma Bay, where it was destroyed.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Jacob Philipp Hackert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Valiant and HMS Namur Named ship
The British Fleet Entering Havana, 21 August 1762, 1775
Artist Dominic Serres (1722 to 1793)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0415)
Medium Oil on canvas
Serres, a Gascon who had run away to sea and probably reached England as a prisoner of war, knew Havana from his seafaring years. Here, once the obstructions at the harbour mouth had been cleared, Commodore Keppel's Valiant leads his squadron into Havana, an honour granted him by Admiral Pocock, whose flagship Namur follows with the bulk of a fleet of about 180 sail. The canvas belongs to a series painted for the Keppel family, three of whose brothers served at Havana. It is a picture of triumph after siege: a great fleet sailing in through the narrow entrance to the harbour.
The real ship Namur flew the flag of Admiral Sir George Pocock as Admiral of the Blue during the Havana expedition of 1762, the last major operation of the Seven Years' War.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Royal George and the Soleil Royal Named ship
The Battle of Quiberon Bay, 20 November 1759, 1779
Artist Dominic Serres (1722 to 1793)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0400)
Medium Oil on canvas
Hawke chased the French Brest fleet into Quiberon Bay as night came on, among ill-charted rocks and reefs where de Conflans assumed no one would follow. Serres puts Hawke's Royal George in the middle, flying his colour as Admiral of the Blue, with the Soleil Royal second from the right. He painted this version in 1779 for Captain William Locker, who had fought in the battle as a lieutenant in the Sapphire and later gave the picture to Greenwich Hospital. It records the victory that ended French plans to invade Britain and inspired the song Heart of Oak.
The real ship Royal George was Admiral Sir Edward Hawke's flagship at Quiberon Bay on 20 November 1759. The French flagship Soleil Royal went aground in the bay near Le Croisic and was burnt the following day.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Lion, the Elizabeth and the Du Teillay Named ship
Action between HMS Lion and Elizabeth and the Du Teillay, 9 July 1745, 1780
Artist Dominic Serres (1722 to 1793)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0364)
Medium Oil on canvas
Aboard the Du Teillay, sailing from Saint-Nazaire in July 1745, was Prince Charles Edward Stuart on his way to raise Scotland. Two days out, Captain Piercy Brett's Lion intercepted her and her escort Elizabeth, and fought the Elizabeth from five in the afternoon until ten at night. Serres paints the third phase, at about eight: Lion's shot-away mizzen topmast hangs over her side, the Elizabeth is in the centre, and the Du Teillay fires at Lion from the right. Lion was too damaged to follow, and the prince sailed on to Scotland, Culloden and exile.
The real ship HMS Lion under Captain Piercy Brett lost 52 killed and about 110 wounded; the French Elizabeth lost about 57 killed, including her commander Captain Dau, and broke free to rejoin the Du Teillay, which carried the Young Pretender on to Scotland.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
The Thésée Named ship
The Battle of Quiberon Bay, 20 November 1759, mid- to late 18th century
Artist Richard Paton (1717 to 1791)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0397)
Medium Oil on canvas
Where Serres gave Quiberon Bay the flagships, Paton gives it a single terrible image: the French Thésée taking her last plunge in the foreground as the sea breaks over her forecastle, with Keppel's Torbay close by and still firing into her. Hawke had followed de Conflans into a bay of rocks and reefs as night came on, and the Thésée was sunk outright. The Soleil Royal and other ships fight on in the background, while Hawke's own flagship, curiously, is nowhere to be seen. The picture makes the cost of the most decisive naval battle of the Seven Years' War visible through one ship going down.
The real ship The Thésée was sunk outright at the Battle of Quiberon Bay on 20 November 1759, in which Hawke's fleet destroyed the French Brest fleet and ended French plans to invade Britain during the Seven Years' War.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Sandwich and the San Domingo Named ship
The Moonlight Battle off Cape St Vincent, 16 January 1780
Artist Francis Holman (1729 to 1784)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0427, Caird Collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
Holman had his picture of the Moonlight Battle on the walls of the Royal Academy in the same year as the action. Unlike Serres, he puts Rodney's flagship Sandwich, 90 guns, in the foreground, right of centre and flying his flag as Admiral of the White, and shows the instant the Spanish San Domingo blew up ahead of her, spars flung into the air. Around them a running fight is under way that went on through the night. Six Spanish ships of the line were taken, including the flagship, while Rodney went on convoying supplies to beleaguered Gibraltar.
The real ship Sandwich, 90 guns, was Rodney's flagship when he met Admiral de Langara's Spanish squadron of eleven ships of the line and two frigates off Cape St Vincent on 16 January 1780; the San Domingo, 70 guns, blew up with all hands and six ships of the line were captured, including the flagship.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
The San Domingo and a British two-decker Named ship
The Moonlight Battle: the Battle off Cape St Vincent, 16 January 1780, 1781
Artist Dominic Serres (1722 to 1793)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0430)
Medium Oil on canvas
Rodney, sailing to relieve Gibraltar, caught a Spanish squadron off Cape St Vincent and chased it through a stormy night. Serres paints the battle by the light of its most dreadful moment: the San Domingo blowing up just outside the right edge of the canvas. Her flash lights the sails of a British two-decker raking a Spanish ship, and silhouettes the sternmost ship of the Spanish line. The museum notes how unusual the choice is: instead of Rodney's flagship Sandwich, Serres puts an anonymous two-decker at the centre, lit by fire in the dark.
The real ship The Spanish San Domingo blew up and sank with all hands at 16.40 on 16 January 1780. The chase went on through the night until 02.00, and Rodney lost none of his ships.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Ville de Paris and HMS Barfleur Named ship
The Battle of the Saints, 12 April 1782: surrender of the 'Ville de Paris', 1783
Artist Thomas Whitcombe (c. 1752 to c. 1824)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0446)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Saints is remembered for Rodney breaking the French line, and Whitcombe paints its climax: Hood's Barfleur pouring a broadside into de Grasse's flagship Ville de Paris as she strikes her colours. A boat full of cheering sailors pulls towards a dismasted prize, Rodney's Formidable fights on beyond, and the recaptured Ardent flies the red ensign over French colours. Little is known of Whitcombe, who probably spent most of his career in London, yet the museum finds in his ships a specific knowledge of life at sea.
The real ship Ville de Paris was the flagship of Vice Admiral the Comte de Grasse and struck her colours at the Battle of the Saints on 12 April 1782, the final sea battle of the War of American Independence.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Art UK
Image: Thomas Whitcombe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
The Franco-Spanish floating batteries Unnamed
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782, 1783 to 1791
Artist John Singleton Copley (1738 to 1815)
Where to see it Guildhall Art Gallery, London
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned by the City of London in 1783 and finished in 1791, Copley's canvas covers more than 42 square metres, one of the largest oil paintings in Britain. In the background the floating batteries, designed by the French engineer d'Arçon to be unsinkable and unburnable, lie crippled and aflame after the British heated shot, while the governor, General Eliott, rides to the edge of the battlements to direct the rescue of Spanish sailors from the water. The ships are the defeated giants of the picture, and their burning makes the rescue its true subject.
The vessels Ten floating batteries carrying 5,260 men and 138 to 212 heavy guns attacked Gibraltar on 13 September 1782. Their timbers were packed with wet sand and water was pumped over them against fire, yet British heated shot set them ablaze, and gunboats under the naval commander Roger Curtis rescued Spanish sailors from the burning vessels.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: John Singleton Copley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Hood's fleet at anchor off St Kitts Unnamed
The Battle of Frigate Bay, 26 January 1782, 1784
Artist Nicholas Pocock (1740 to 1821)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0436)
Medium Oil on canvas
At St Kitts in January 1782 Rear Admiral Hood faced a larger French fleet under de Grasse, and Pocock paints the British ships at anchor in an L-shaped formation, with Hood's flagship Barfleur at the angle, while the French come in to attack along the line. It is a picture about seamanship and position rather than carnage, even though Hood could not save the island from surrendering. Painted two years after the action and on a grand scale, more than two metres wide, it comes from a former merchant captain whose accuracy naval commanders sought out.
The vessels Hood's fleet fought de Grasse off St Kitts in January 1782, during the War of American Independence; the island still fell to the French. Three months later both admirals were at the Battle of the Saints.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Nicholas Pocock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Magicienne and the Sibylle Named ship
Start of the Action between HMS Magicienne and La Sibylle, 2 January 1783, 1784
Artist Robert Dodd (1748 to 1815)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0456)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two evenly matched 32-gun frigates trade broadsides in the last weeks of the American war, and there is an irony in the match: the Magicienne, flying the blue ensign in the foreground, had herself been a French ship until the British took her in 1781. Dodd shows both already damaged, wrapped in gunsmoke, with a sail on either side of the horizon. The Sibylle came through the fight only to be captured by HMS Centurion the following month. Painted a year after the action, it is a pure frigate duel.
The real ship Magicienne, a French 32-gun frigate captured by the British on 2 July 1781, fought the French Sibylle on 2 January 1783; the Sibylle was taken by HMS Centurion on 22 February 1783.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Superb and the Héros Named ship
Battle of Negapatam, 6 July 1782, 1786
Artist Dominic Serres (1722 to 1793)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0448)
Medium Oil on canvas
Far from Europe, off Ceylon and the east coast of India, Sir Edward Hughes and the Bailli de Suffren fought five fleet actions, all furiously contested. Serres shows the third, at Negapatam, while both squadrons still hold their lines: the British on the left led by Commodore King in the Hero, Hughes fifth in line in the Superb, and Suffren also fifth in the French line in the Héros. No ship was lost, yet hundreds were killed and wounded. The picture is one of a set of eight large canvases Serres painted for Hughes to record his long duel with Suffren.
The real ship Superb carried Hughes's flag and the Héros carried Suffren's in the third of five actions fought off Ceylon and the east coast of India during the War of American Independence.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Héros Named ship
The Battle of Porto Praya, 16 April 1781 (Combat de la Praya), 1786
Artist Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy (1736 to 1804)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (3 OA 20)
Medium Oil on canvas
Rossel de Cercy was a French naval officer who began painting around 1770 and recorded the navy's actions of the War of American Independence; this is the opening blow of Suffren's voyage to the Indian Ocean. Finding Commodore George Johnstone's British squadron anchored in the neutral Portuguese harbour of Porto Praya in the Cape Verde Islands, with men ashore, Suffren attacked at once, leading in with his flagship Héros. The fight was inconclusive and his own ships took more damage, but Suffren beat Johnstone to the Cape Colony and reinforced its garrison.
The real ship Héros was Suffren's flagship on his voyage to the Cape and the East Indies. At Porto Praya on 16 April 1781 she engaged the two largest British ships, Hero and Monmouth, while the French briefly took several East Indiamen and the fireship Infernal.
Image: Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Junon and HMS Fox Named ship
The Fight of the Junon against the Fox, 11 September 1778 (Combat de la Junon contre le Fox, 11 septembre 1778), 1788
Artist Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy (1736 to 1804)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Brest (3 OA 18)
Medium Oil on canvas
Off Brest in September 1778, in poor visibility, HMS Fox gave chase to two sails and found too late that one was the newly commissioned frigate Junon under the Vicomte de Beaumont. Unusually for a French ship, the Junon fired into her enemy's hull rather than her rigging, and her heavier guns brought down all three of the Fox's masts. After three and a half hours under fire, with most of his guns out of action and himself wounded, Captain Windsor struck. The Junon towed her prize into Brest, and Rossel, a veteran naval officer turned painter, recorded the victory.
The real ship Junon, a 32-gun Charmante-class frigate, fought at Ushant in 1778, took the 28-gun HMS Fox on 11 September 1778, helped capture HMS Ardent in 1779 and took the sloop HMS Rover in 1780.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Hermione and Astrée against HMS Charlestown and her convoy escorts Named ship
The Fight off Louisbourg, 21 July 1781 (Combat de Louisbourg, 21 juillet 1781), 1788
Artist Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy (1736 to 1804)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (3 OA 19)
Medium Oil on canvas
This is the Hermione, the frigate that carried La Fayette to America in 1780, in the greatest fight of her career. Off Spanish River on Cape Breton the light frigates Astrée, under Lapérouse, and Hermione, under Latouche Tréville, fell on a convoy of eighteen merchant ships and its escorts drawn up in line of battle. Hermione overtook her consort and poured broadsides into the Charlestown, then fired point blank into the armed ship Jack until she struck. As night fell the Charlestown, her main topmast gone, slipped away. Rossel painted it as part of the cycle of naval victories Louis XVI entrusted to him.
The real ship Hermione, a 32-gun Concorde-class frigate, was built at Rochefort, launched on 28 April 1779, and was among the first French warships to be copper-sheathed. She carried La Fayette to the United States in 1780, fought at Cape Henry and off Louisbourg in 1781, and was wrecked in 1793. A replica, also named Hermione, was begun at Rochefort in 1997.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Belle Poule and HMS Arethusa Named ship
The Fight of the Belle Poule against the Arethusa, 17 June 1778 (Combat de la Belle Poule contre l'Aréthuse, 17 juin 1778), 1789
Artist Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy (1736 to 1804)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Brest (3 OA 7)
Medium Oil on canvas
Rossel, a naval officer who retired as a captain and turned to painting, recorded the fight that opened the war between Britain and France in 1778. South of the Lizard the frigate Belle Poule refused to be taken to Admiral Keppel's flagship, answered a warning shot with a full broadside, and fought the Arethusa for two hours until the British frigate lost her mainmast and dragged herself back under jury masts. The duel was so famous that ladies of high society invented a Belle Poule hairstyle, with a ship on top of the head. The picture belongs to the cycle Louis XVI entrusted to Rossel in 1786.
“I am the Belle Poule, frigate of the King of France; I sail from sea and I sail to sea.”
The real ship Belle Poule was built at Bordeaux between 1765 and 1767 and was chosen for the first French attempt at coppering a hull. She was captured by HMS Nonsuch off Île d'Yeu on the night of 14 July 1780.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Surveillante and HMS Quebec Named ship
The Fight of the Surveillante against the Quebec, 6 October 1779 (Combat de la Surveillante contre le Québec), 1789
Artist Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy (1736 to 1804)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Brest (3 OA 12)
Medium Oil on canvas
Few frigate actions were fought harder. Off Ushant the Surveillante under Du Couëdic and the Quebec under George Farmer battered each other for hours until both were dismasted and entangled. Du Couëdic, wounded three times, led a boarding that was thrown back. Then fire from the Quebec's fallen sails spread through her and reached the magazine; she blew up with her captain, while the crippled Surveillante threw ropes to British sailors swimming near her, and treated the survivors as castaways rather than prisoners. Rossel's picture of the battle is a key exhibit of the Musée national de la Marine.
The real ship Surveillante was a French frigate; Du Couëdic died of his wounds in January 1780, admired by both French and British. HMS Quebec, a 32-gun frigate armed at the time with only nine-pounders, was destroyed by the explosion on 6 October 1779.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy; photo Med, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Junon, Gentille and HMS Ardent Named ship
The Fight of the Junon and the Gentille against the Ardent, 17 August 1779 (Combat de la Junon et la Gentille contre l'Ardent), 1791
Artist Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy (1736 to 1804)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (3 OA 24)
Medium Oil on canvas
In August 1779 HMS Ardent, a 64 manned largely by landsmen, sailed from Plymouth to join the Channel Fleet, unaware that a French fleet was at sea. Two days out she met a fleet that gave the correct reply to her private signal and ran down towards it: it was the Franco-Spanish fleet, somehow holding the Royal Navy's signal book. The frigate Junon fired two broadsides before raising her colours, more ships joined, and the Ardent struck after only sporadic return fire. Rossel painted this triumph of surprise for the cycle of French naval victories that Louis XVI entrusted to him.
The real ship HMS Ardent, a 64-gun third-rate built at Hull and launched on 13 August 1764, was captured by the French on 17 August 1779 and retaken by Britain after the Battle of the Saintes in 1782. The Junon, a 32-gun Charmante-class frigate under Captain Charles de Bernard de Marigny, posed as a British frigate before hoisting French colours.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
The Swedish archipelago fleet and the Russian galley fleet Unnamed
The Battle of Svensksund, 9 July 1790 (Slaget vid Svensksund den 9 juli 1790), 1792
Artist Johan Tietrich Schoultz (1754 to 1807)
Where to see it Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NMRbg 23, Rosersberg Palace collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
Schoultz served in the Swedish archipelago fleet through Gustav III's Russian war of 1788 to 1790, aboard the galleys Kalmar, Svärdsorden and, in 1790, Seraphimsorden. His paintings are not rated highly as art; they are valued as records of the fighting by a man who took part, and have been used again and again to illustrate histories of the war. This one shows Svensksund, the greatest Swedish naval victory and the largest naval battle ever fought in the Baltic, where the king himself led the coastal fleet against the Russians.
The vessels The Second Battle of Svensksund was fought on 9 and 10 July 1790 in the Gulf of Finland, off present-day Kotka. Gustav III's coastal fleet of galleys, gun sloops and archipelago frigates dealt the Russian fleet a devastating defeat that ended the Russo-Swedish War.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia (SV) · Wikipedia
Image: Johan Tietrich Schoultz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Queen Charlotte Named ship
Lord Howe on the Deck of the Queen Charlotte, 1 June 1794
Artist Mather Brown (1761 to 1831)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Medium Oil on canvas
The Boston-born Mather Brown went down to Portsmouth after the battle to sketch Queen Charlotte and her officers, then set the scene on her deck under the influence of his teacher Benjamin West's Death of General Wolfe. Howe stands sword in hand, Captain Curtis leans on a gun with a speaking trumpet, Captain Douglas clutches his wounded head, and the main focus falls on a dying army lieutenant, Nevile, struck by a French cannon shot. The picture was shown to George III and Queen Charlotte before going on view in Old Bond Street in 1795. The ship is present as a stage: the deck on which a victory was won.
The real ship Queen Charlotte, 100 guns, was Admiral Lord Howe's flagship at the Glorious First of June, 1794, when the Channel Fleet defeated the French in the Atlantic several hundred miles west of France.
Sources Wikipedia · Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Queen Charlotte and the Vengeur du Peuple Named ship
The Battle of the First of June, 1794 (exhibited as Earl Howe's Victory over the French Fleet), 1795
Artist Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740 to 1812)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0470)
Medium Oil on canvas
De Loutherbourg, the scene designer of Drury Lane, went to Portsmouth to view the captured French prizes before painting this vast canvas. At its centre Howe's flagship Queen Charlotte, flying the Union flag, is locked in battle with the French Montagne, but the eye is drawn down to the foreground, where British seamen pull French sailors from the sea with hand, oar and boat hook while the Vengeur du Peuple sinks beyond. The museum reads it as a picture of drama and of compassion to a defeated enemy. Howe and his Master of the Fleet disapproved of its accuracy, yet it later hung at St James's Palace, and Turner's Trafalgar was painted as its pair.
The real ship Queen Charlotte, 100 guns, was Lord Howe's flagship in the Channel Fleet at the battle of 1 June 1794, fought far out in the Atlantic west of Ushant, in which six French ships of the line were taken and one, the Vengeur du Peuple, was sunk.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Philip James de Loutherbourg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Brunswick and the Vengeur du Peuple Named ship
The 'Brunswick' and the 'Vengeur du Peuple' at the Battle of the First of June, 1794, 1795
Artist Nicholas Pocock (1740 to 1821)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0471)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pocock watched the Glorious First of June from the frigate Pegasus and filled a notebook with sketches and notes. Here the Brunswick has fallen foul of the Vengeur du Peuple, the two 74s grinding together while Brunswick's gunners fire alternately up through the Frenchman's decks and down below her waterline; on her other side the Achille is losing all her masts. The Vengeur would sink, an unusual fate for a wooden warship in battle. The holes in every sail carry the ferocity of the day better than any smoke.
“the ships dismasted seem'd to emerge from the smoke in such a manner that we could not see even who they had engaged last”
The real ship The Vengeur du Peuple, a French 74, sank after her long duel with HMS Brunswick at the battle of 1 June 1794, fought four hundred miles west of Ushant; six other French ships of the line were captured.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Nicholas Pocock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Vengeur du Peuple Named ship
Heroism of the Sailors of the Vengeur, commanded by Captain Renaudin (Héroïsme des marins du vaisseau Le Vengeur commandés par le capitaine Renaudin), 1795
Artist Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755 to 1830)
Where to see it Musée de l'Histoire de France, Château de Versailles (MV 5518)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted the year after the event, Taunay's small canvas is the legend at its freshest, when the Convention and Barère were presenting the Vengeur's crew as republicans who went down fighting rather than surrender. The title honours the sailors and their captain, Renaudin. In truth the ship had struck after her furious duel with HMS Brunswick and foundered some hours later as British ships began rescuing her men, but in 1795 the story mattered more than the facts, and pictures like this one kept the legend alive long after historians had discredited it.
The real ship The Vengeur du Peuple, launched in 1766 as the Marseillois, foundered on 1 June 1794 at the Glorious First of June after surrendering to HMS Brunswick, taking almost half her crew with her.
Sources Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Nicolas-Antoine Taunay, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Captain with the San Josef and San Nicolas Named ship
The Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797, 1798
Artist Robert Cleveley (1747 to 1809)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0486)
Medium Oil on canvas
The companion to Cleveley's Victory raking the Salvador del Mundo shows how the day ended. At the centre three ships are locked together: Commodore Nelson's Captain and the two Spaniards he had taken, the San Nicolas and the San Josef. In the right foreground lies the captured Salvador del Mundo, her mizzen mast gone, with the captured San Ysidro beyond, and spars and sails float across the sea while the rest of the fleet pursues in the distance. The museum sees the victory as British performance outweighing Spanish numbers, and the tangle of hulls at the centre is where Nelson's own ship ended the day.
The real ship HMS Captain, 74 guns, under Commodore Nelson, took the Spanish San Nicolas, 80 guns, and San Josef, 112 guns, at Cape St Vincent on 14 February 1797, where four Spanish ships in all were captured by Jervis's outnumbered fleet.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Robert Cleveley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory and the Salvador del Mundo Named ship
The 'Victory' Raking the Spanish 'Salvador del Mundo' at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797, 1798
Artist Robert Cleveley (1747 to 1809)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0485)
Medium Oil on canvas
At Cape St Vincent Jervis's fifteen ships of the line took on twenty-seven Spaniards, and four were taken, two of them first-rates. Cleveley shows the opening of the action, when Victory, 100 guns, raked the Salvador del Mundo, 112 guns, and forced her to strike. The Spanish giant fills the right foreground, her stern lost in the smoke of the broadside, with only Victory's bow thrust out of the cloud. Cleveley, who had worked in Deptford Royal Dockyard and became marine painter to the Prince Regent, lets the smaller ship win out of the smoke.
The real ship Salvador del Mundo, a Spanish first-rate of 112 guns, struck to the British at Cape St Vincent on 14 February 1797 and was one of four Spanish ships captured.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Robert Cleveley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Venerable and the Vrijheid Named ship
The Battle of Camperdown, 1799
Artist Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740 to 1812)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (T01451)
Medium Oil on canvas
The British flagship Venerable fires her last broadside into the dismasted Dutch Vrijheid in de Loutherbourg's account of the victory off the Dutch coast in 1797. Tate places the picture within the art of the Sublime: the painter, chief designer of scenery at Drury Lane, cared more for dramatic effect than for documentation. Sailors cling to broken spars in the rough water, and high on Venerable's broken main royal mast climbs Jack Crawford, who went aloft under fire to raise the admiral's flag again.
“the horror and devastation attendant upon a conflict disputed with such obstinate bravery”
The real ship Venerable was the British flagship at the Battle of Camperdown, 11 October 1797, when the North Sea fleet defeated a Dutch fleet, then allied with France, off the coast of Holland. During the action she lost the part of a mast carrying the admiral's flag, which the sailor Jack Crawford climbed up to restore.
Image: Philip James de Loutherbourg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
L'Orient Named ship
The Battle of the Nile, 1800
Artist Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740 to 1812)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (T01452)
Medium Oil on canvas
De Loutherbourg chose the instant that stunned both fleets in Aboukir Bay: the explosion of the French flagship L'Orient. Nelson's own flagship Vanguard is set in the left foreground and the French line of battle runs away to the right. He had painted The Battle of Camperdown the year before, and the two canvases now hang together at Tate Britain. The blast at the heart of the picture gives it both its light and its dread, a single ship turned into the image of a whole victory.
The real ship L'Orient, 120 guns, was the flagship of the French Vice Admiral Brueys at the Battle of the Nile on 1 August 1798. She blew up at 10 pm, killing the admiral and most of her company.
Sources Tate · Wikipedia · Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Philip James de Loutherbourg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Nelson's squadron and the French fleet at anchor Unnamed
The Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798, 1800
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0512)
Medium Oil on canvas
Luny shows Nelson's leading ships coming into action at about half past six, in the failing light, as they attack the head of Brueys's anchored line in Aboukir Bay. The museum points out a revealing slip: the British line is on the wrong side of the picture, which suggests Luny worked from an engraving and so copied a reversed image. He painted the battle several times, at different times of day. Signed and dated 1800, it shows how quickly the Nile became a subject in demand, and how a painter could piece the battle together from prints.
The vessels At the Nile, Nelson's ships attacked the French fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay, 15 miles east of Alexandria, on the evening of 1 August 1798; some passed round the bows of the leading French ships to engage from the landward side.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Bayonnaise and HMS Ambuscade Named ship
The Fight of the Corvette Bayonnaise against the Frigate Ambuscade, 14 December 1798 (Combat de la corvette La Bayonnaise contre la frégate anglaise L'Embuscade), 1801
Artist Louis-Philippe Crépin (1772 to 1851)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 17)
Medium Oil on canvas
Crépin's most famous picture was commissioned by Napoleon for the Tuileries palace and shown at the Salon of 1801. It celebrates a fight off the Île de Ré in which the small corvette Bayonnaise, badly outgunned, backed sail, turned hard and rammed the frigate Ambuscade. Her bowsprit cut down the frigate's mizzen and became a bridge, and her seamen and a detachment of soldiers climbed onto the taller British ship and took her. Crépin, a pupil of Joseph Vernet and Hubert Robert, had himself served four years at sea as a topman and then helmsman.
The real ship Bayonnaise was a 24-gun corvette of the French Navy; HMS Ambuscade, a 32-gun frigate, was captured by boarding on 14 December 1798 and taken into French service as Embuscade. The painting hung at Saint-Cloud and later at Versailles before entering the Musée national de la Marine in 1935.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Louis-Philippe Crépin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Chevrette Named ship
The Capture of the Chevrette, 1802
Artist Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740 to 1812)
Where to see it Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1801 the French corvette Chevrette lay in Camaret Bay under the protection of the shore batteries, apparently safe. The ship's boats of four Royal Navy ships blockading Brest, Robust, Doris, Beaulieu and Uranie, went in, stormed her and overpowered her crew, then sailed the prize out of the bay. Loutherbourg exhibited his painting at the Royal Academy in 1802, and the Scottish painter John Christian Schetky also painted the engagement. The corvette is both victim and trophy: a whole warship carried off by men in open boats.
The real ship Chevrette was a French Navy corvette captured at her moorings in Camaret Bay, Brittany, in 1801 by a cutting-out party from the British squadron blockading Brest, during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Philip James de Loutherbourg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Elephant Named ship
The Battle of Copenhagen, 2 April 1801, 1806
Artist Nicholas Pocock (1740 to 1821)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0529)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pocock painted Copenhagen for the engravings in Clarke and Macarthur's Life of Nelson, and the museum calls it a highly detailed representation of the action. Nelson's line lies anchored and fighting the Danish line between it and the city, the Elephant left of centre under his blue flag, while bomb vessels on the edge of the Middle Ground shoal throw shells over both fleets towards Copenhagen. This is the battle in which Nelson ignored his superior's signal to leave off action, and later offered a truce to save the Danish wounded. The anchored ships give the picture its grim, close stillness.
“I have a right to be blind sometimes”
The real ship Elephant carried Nelson's flag at Copenhagen on 2 April 1801, when his squadron fought the anchored Danish defence line to force Denmark out of the Armed Neutrality of the Northern Powers.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Art UK
Image: Nicholas Pocock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory and the Redoutable Named ship
The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory, 1806 to 1808
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (N00480)
Medium Oil on canvas
When Victory came home with Nelson's body, Turner went to sketch her from every angle and questioned her crew about where the officers had stood. The result puts us high in the mizzen rigging, looking down on the crowded deck at the moment Nelson falls, with red-coated marines firing across at the Redoutable, the ship from which the fatal shot had come. Sails and cannon smoke close in on every side. A reviewer of 1808 wrote that it suggested the whole of a great naval victory in a single picture; Benjamin West thought the figures miserably bad.
“suggested the whole of a great naval victory, which we believe has never before been successfully accomplished”
The real ship HMS Victory was Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, where she fought alongside the French Redoutable, from which Nelson was shot. She is preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources Tate · Wikipedia · victorianweb.org · royalnavymuseums.org.uk
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory Named ship
The Death of Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, 1806
Artist Samuel Drummond (1766 to 1844)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0547)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted within a year of Trafalgar, Drummond's picture shows Nelson being carried down Victory's companionway so that the men around him would not lose heart. The museum reads the group as an homage to images of the Deposition from the Cross. Behind them, on the quarterdeck, sailors and marines are still fighting the Redoutable, and sails billow and swirl around the smoke to frame the scene. Drummond painted variations on this subject between 1806 and 1828 and published it as a mezzotint in 1809: the ship's own ladders and decks became the setting of a national image of grief.
The real ship HMS Victory was Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, where she was engaged with the French Redoutable; Nelson was struck by a musket ball fired from the Redoutable at about 1.30 pm. Victory is preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · royalnavymuseums.org.uk
Image: Samuel Drummond, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory Named ship
The Victory Returning from Trafalgar, in Three Positions, c. 1806
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (Paul Mellon Collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
After Trafalgar Victory came home carrying Nelson's body, and Turner drew her at Sheerness in his Shipwreck and Nelson sketchbooks. In this canvas he paints her three times over, in the old tradition of ship portraits, so that the three hulls are one ship seen from different angles, apparently off the Needles. It was possibly shown at his own gallery in 1806 beside his Trafalgar, and was bought by Walter Fawkes. Instead of smoke and slaughter, Turner gives the flagship a quiet procession across the water, shown in her prime rather than battered.
The real ship After Trafalgar Victory put into Spithead for repairs to her masts in December 1805, then carried Nelson's body up the Channel to Sheerness, where Turner drew her. She is preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources Google Arts & Culture · Tate · royalnavymuseums.org.uk
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory, HMS Temeraire, the Redoutable and the Fougueux Named ship
The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805: End of the Action, 1807
Artist Nicholas Pocock (1740 to 1821)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0549)
Medium Oil on canvas
At about five in the afternoon the guns have stopped, and Pocock takes a bird's-eye view from the south-east over a sea of wrecks. The most shattered British ships lie with their prizes in the foreground, Bellerophon without her main and mizzen topmasts, the Achille burning in the middle distance, Victory with only her foremasts standing and almost masking Villeneuve's Bucentaure, and the Temeraire dismasted between the captured Fougueux and Redoutable. The ten remaining enemy ships make their escape. Painted for the engravings in Clarke and McArthur's Life of Nelson, it is a precise portrait of the aftermath.
The real ship By the end of Trafalgar seventeen allied ships had struck and one had blown up, with no British ship lost. The Temeraire, 98 guns, ended the day dismasted beside the captured Fougueux and Redoutable.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Nicholas Pocock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory Named ship
The Death of Nelson, 21 October 1805, 1807
Artist Arthur William Devis (1762 to 1822)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2894)
Medium Oil on canvas
Devis sketched Nelson's body on board Victory when she reached England in December 1805, then drew from life the men who had been with him at his death, and joined them in one scene. The painting takes us into the cockpit, with Hardy standing over the admiral, the surgeon Beatty kneeling to feel his pulse and the chaplain Scott rubbing his chest. The museum describes how Devis joined portraiture to the imagery of Renaissance religious painting, bathing Nelson in a golden light. Here the ship is not seen from outside at all; she is the low, crowded space in which the victory was mourned.
“bathing Nelson in a golden light”
The real ship HMS Victory, 100 guns, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, returned to England in December 1805 carrying his body. She is preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · royalnavymuseums.org.uk
Image: Arthur William Devis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Drawing
HMS Victory Named ship
The 'Victory' Coming up the Channel with the Body of Nelson, c. 1807 to 1819
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it Tate, London (D08183)
Medium Pencil and watercolour on paper
In this small watercolour Turner returned to his oil painting now at Yale, showing Nelson's flagship three times over in the tradition of ship portraits, so that one ship seems a small fleet, apparently south-west of the Isle of Wight off the Needles. It was long assumed to be a design for his Liber Studiorum prints that was never carried out. Turner had drawn Victory at Sheerness when she arrived with the admiral's body, yet here he shows her in her prime rather than battered, carried home on a fresh breeze.
“all three ships are one, and are generally thought to represent Nelson's flagship”
The real ship After Trafalgar Victory put into Spithead for repairs to her masts in December 1805, then sailed up the Channel to Sheerness with Nelson's body. She is preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources Tate · Google Arts & Culture · royalnavymuseums.org.uk
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Tate Britain, London. Photo: Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Goliath, HMS Zealous and the French fleet at anchor Named ship
The Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798, 1808
Artist Nicholas Pocock (1740 to 1821)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0513)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pocock, a Bristol man who went to sea at seventeen, commanded merchant ships and only took up painting in his early forties, shows the opening of the Nile at about half past six in the evening, looking across Aboukir Bay at sunset. Captain Foley's Goliath leads Nelson's fleet round the head of the anchored French line, and Zealous rounds the bows of the leading French ship to attack from the landward side, while the whole French fleet, L'Orient among them, lies waiting across the bay. Turbaned figures and palm trees in the foreground place us in Egypt. It is the calm before the night that followed.
The real ship Goliath and Zealous were 74-gun ships of Nelson's squadron. On the evening of 1 August 1798 they led the attack on Brueys's fleet at anchor in Aboukir Bay, rounding the head of the French line to engage it from the landward side.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Nicholas Pocock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory and the Bucentaure Named ship
The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805: Beginning of the Action, c. 1808
Artist Nicholas Pocock (1740 to 1821)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0548)
Medium Oil on canvas
The first of Pocock's pair for Clarke and McArthur's Life of Nelson is a bird's-eye view from the north-east of the Franco-Spanish line being broken in two places. Nelson's division, led by Victory, fills the foreground as she rakes Villeneuve's flagship Bucentaure from astern, while Collingwood's division fights in the distance. Around them the museum identifies ship after ship, the Spanish Neptuno and San Agustín, the French Scipion and Formidable, the British Africa hurrying to join and the frigates. It is Trafalgar as an old merchant captain saw it: a problem of positions, engraved with a plan and key beside it.
The real ship Victory, 100 guns, led the left-hand, windward column of the British fleet at Trafalgar and broke the enemy line just ahead of its centre, raking Villeneuve's flagship Bucentaure, 80 guns. She is preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · royalnavymuseums.org.uk
Image: Nicholas Pocock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Spartan and the Cerere Named ship
HMS 'Spartan' and French Frigates: Beginning of the Action, Third of May 1810
Artist Thomas Whitcombe (c. 1752 to c. 1824)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0594), on loan from the Greenwich Hospital Collection
Medium Oil on canvas
Captain Jahleel Brenton sent his consort Success away, never expecting the Neapolitan squadron to come out and fight two British frigates. It did, with 400 Swiss troops aboard and seven gunboats in support, and the Spartan met them alone in the Bay of Naples. Whitcombe paints the opening of the two-hour action, Spartan firing her port broadside as the Cerere, Fama and Sparviero pass her, with Naples as the backdrop. Brenton fought standing on the capstan until grapeshot struck his hip; the Sparviero was forced to strike.
The real ship HMS Spartan, a British frigate commanded by Captain Jahleel Brenton, fought a Neapolitan squadron off Naples on 3 May 1810; the Cerere and Fama hauled off and the Sparviero struck.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Thomas Whitcombe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Spartan and the captured Sparviero Named ship
The 'Spartan's' Engagement with a Neapolitan Squadron, 3 May 1810: End of the Action
Artist Thomas Whitcombe (c. 1752 to c. 1824)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0595)
Medium Oil on canvas
The second of Whitcombe's pair shows the aftermath of Spartan's lone fight in the Bay of Naples. With 259 men and 46 guns she had beaten a squadron of 1,400 men and 95 guns; now she lies with damaged sails while men in her rigging set about repairs, and the captured brig Sparviero, her mast broken, floats astern under the British flag. Captain Brenton had been hit in the hip by grapeshot, a wound that ended his active career. The museum calls it a remarkable British success, and Whitcombe paints it quietly: a damaged frigate and her prize, with Naples beyond.
“hit in the hip by a piece of grapeshot”
The real ship HMS Spartan, 38 guns, under Captain Jahleel Brenton, fought a Neapolitan squadron off Naples on 3 May 1810. Ten British were killed and Brenton, his first lieutenant and twenty others wounded, against 131 Neapolitan killed or wounded, and the brig Sparviero was captured.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Thomas Whitcombe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Defence Named ship
The 'Defence' at the Battle of the First of June, 1794, 1811
Artist Nicholas Pocock (1740 to 1821)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0474)
Medium Oil on canvas
Seventeen years after the battle, which he had watched from the frigate Pegasus, Pocock returned to one ship in particular: Captain James Gambier's Defence, 74 guns, one of the most heavily engaged ships of the day. He places her dismasted in the middle of the picture, her deck and sides littered with broken spars and trailing rigging, still firing into the French Achille while another Frenchman rakes her from astern. Drawing on the notebook of sketches he had kept, Pocock turns a single battered 74 into a portrait of what a fleet action did to a ship.
The real ship Defence, 74 guns, was commanded by Captain James Gambier at the battle of 1 June 1794, fought four hundred miles west of Ushant, and was dismasted in the action.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Nicholas Pocock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Reasonable and the Caroline Named ship
The Capture of Saint Paul near the Isle de Bourbon, 21 September 1809, 1812
Artist Thomas Whitcombe (c. 1752 to c. 1824)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0593)
Medium Oil on canvas
In September 1809 a British force landed five miles north of Saint Paul on the Île Bourbon, now Réunion, took the town and turned its batteries on the ships in the bay, which cut their cables and drifted ashore. Whitcombe shows Josias Rowley's Reasonable coming in with the Otter, two frigates and a schooner, while in the bay the French frigate Caroline fights the Sirius among the French shipping and two captured Indiamen, the island rising behind. It is a rare view of the Indian Ocean campaign that, the following August, brought British and French frigates to battle at Grand Port on Mauritius.
The real ship Reasonable was commanded by Sir Josias Rowley, who secured the French shipping at Saint Paul and refloated three ships that had gone ashore; the French agreed on 23 September to surrender all public property and the British withdrew on 28 September.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Whitcombe, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Shannon and USS Chesapeake Named ship
Action between HMS 'Shannon' and USS 'Chesapeake', 1 June 1813
Artist T. Jordan
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0603)
Medium Oil on canvas
Jordan's picture carries the politics of the war in its flags. The Chesapeake, on the left, flies at her fore a white flag with the American cause written on it, Sailors Rights and Free Trade, while Broke's Shannon, famous for the gunnery drill of her crew, closes on the right. The fight lasted fifteen minutes; Broke led about fifty men aboard and was badly wounded, and Second Lieutenant Provo Wallis, who took the surrender, lived to become Admiral of the Fleet. A press cutting marking the start of Wallis's hundredth year, in 1890, is still stuck to the canvas.
“Sailors Rights / and / Free Trade”
The real ship Chesapeake, a United States frigate of 1799, was taken off Boston on 1 June 1813 by Captain Philip Broke's Shannon after an action of only fifteen minutes, in which her captain, Lawrence, was mortally wounded.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Drawing
USS Constitution and HMS Guerriere Named ship
Constitution and Guerriere (series of four), 1813
Artist George Ropes Jr. (1788 to 1819)
Where to see it USS Constitution Museum, Boston (2094.1 to 4)
Medium Watercolour and gouache
Painted in 1813, the year after the battle, George Ropes's four scenes follow the fight of 19 August 1812 in sequence. The son of a Salem shipmaster, Ropes had studied from the age of thirteen under the Neapolitan painter Michele Felice Cornè, and when he painted ships he did so with the greatest care for detail. The museum calls the series a statement of patriotic pride: a minor action in strategic terms, the victory lifted a public still reeling from the surrender of Detroit and showed that the young United States Navy could match the Royal Navy.
“a statement of patriotic pride”
The real ship USS Constitution met and defeated HMS Guerriere, a 38-gun British frigate commanded by Captain James Richard Dacres, on 19 August 1812.
Sources ussconstitutionmuseum.org
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the USS Constitution Museum, Boston, where the original is kept. Photo: NewtonCourt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
USS United States and HMS Macedonian Named ship
Engagement between the 'United States' and the 'Macedonian', 1813
Artist Thomas Birch (1779 to 1851)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (one of several versions)
Medium Oil on canvas
Near Madeira on 25 October 1812 the American heavy frigate United States beat and captured the British Macedonian, and Thomas Birch painted the fight in 1813, at least three times. One version hung in the Oval Office under President Kennedy, others are in Boston and at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and a version by or after Birch is at Franklin Roosevelt's home; engravings spread the image in 1813 and 1815. The painting shows how fast the frigate victories of 1812 became pictures for American walls, a young navy's proof that it could fight.
The real ship HMS Macedonian, a Royal Navy frigate, was captured by the heavy frigate USS United States near Madeira on 25 October 1812.
Sources Wikipedia
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Shannon and USS Chesapeake Named ship
HMS Shannon Taking USS Chesapeake, 1 June 1813
Artist Thomas Buttersworth (1768 to 1842)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0601)
Medium Oil on canvas
Captain Philip Broke's Shannon met the Chesapeake off Boston on 1 June 1813 and took her in a fight the museum records as lasting only fifteen minutes but costing over 120 lives; the American captain, James Lawrence, was killed. Buttersworth, an English seaman of the Napoleonic Wars who became a marine painter, paints the two frigates at close quarters. The frigate duel is shown not as a spectacle of fleets but as two ships and two crews deciding everything in a quarter of an hour.
“a battle which lasted only 15 minutes but claimed over 120 lives”
The real ship Chesapeake, a 38-gun frigate of the United States Navy, was launched on 2 December 1799 and captured by HMS Shannon on 1 June 1813. Taken into the Royal Navy as HMS Chesapeake, she was later sold for timber.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Buttersworth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Poursuivante and HMS Hercule Named ship
The Fight of the Poursuivante against the Hercule, 28 June 1803 (Combat de la Poursuivante contre l'Hercule), 1819
Artist Louis-Philippe Crépin (1772 to 1851)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 146)
Medium Oil on canvas
A frigate had no business beating a ship of the line, which is why this action was painted. Off Saint-Domingue in June 1803, news of the renewed war had not reached the French when the Poursuivante, partly armed en flûte and short of men and shot, met three British 74s. Her companion Mignonne was taken, but Willaumez kept close to the shore, outmanoeuvred HMS Hercule and raked her with a broadside before escaping into Môle-Saint-Nicolas. The feat won Willaumez high praise, and in 1819 Crépin was commissioned to paint this large canvas in its memory.
The real ship Poursuivante was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, pierced for twenty-four 24-pounders but carrying only 22 of them and a crew of 150 in June 1803; HMS Hercule was a 74-gun ship of the line of the Royal Navy.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Louis-Philippe Crépin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Prince of Wales Named ship
Admiral Sir Robert Calder's Action off Cape Finisterre, 23 July 1805, early 19th century
Artist William Anderson (1757 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0540)
Medium Oil on canvas
Three months before Trafalgar, Calder was sent to intercept Villeneuve's fleet returning from the West Indies; the fleet passed him in thick fog and he cut off only two ships. The action was later judged a failure and a court martial ended his career. Anderson, a Scot whose marine views owe much to seventeenth-century Dutch painting, paints exactly what defeated Calder: the weather. His flagship Prince of Wales rides the green waves in the foreground while the two-deckers astern of her blur and fade into the fog.
The real ship Prince of Wales was Calder's ship in his action with Villeneuve's Franco-Spanish fleet off Cape Finisterre in July 1805.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: William Anderson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory, Santissima Trinidad and the burning Achille Named ship
The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, early 19th century
Artist Samuel Drummond (1766 to 1844)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0550)
Medium Oil on canvas
Drummond frames Trafalgar like a stage, with a British frigate bow on at the left, possibly the Euryalus, shot holes in her foresail, and a dark-sailed ship cut off by the right edge. Between them the battle unrolls: Victory in action with the Santissima Trinidad beyond, the Redoutable and possibly the Temeraire in the smoke, Royal Sovereign breaking the line and the Achille burning on the far right. In the centre French or Spanish sailors cling to a spar while two British boats row in to save them. Drummond gives Victory the open stern galleries she had before she was rebuilt with a closed stern.
The real ship The Spanish Santissima Trinidad, 140 guns, and the French Redoutable were both engaged close to Victory at Trafalgar, where the French Achille was seen burning.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Samuel Drummond, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Hermione (ex-HMS Hermione, in Spanish service) Named ship
The Cutting Out of HMS Hermione, 24 October 1799, early 19th century
Artist Nicholas Pocock (1740 to 1821)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0519)
Medium Oil on canvas
The crew of HMS Hermione had risen against their captain, Hugh Pigot, whom the museum calls psychopathically brutal, murdered him and his officers and handed the ship to Spain. She became the prize every British captain in the West Indies most wanted. At Puerto Cabello, anchored under a battery of 200 guns, she was found by Captain Edward Hamilton of the Surprise, who led his boats alongside; after a desperate fight her cable was cut, her sails loosed and she was carried out without a single Briton killed. Pocock sets her hull black against the fire of the shore batteries and the moonlit hills.
The real ship Hermione was a British frigate whose crew mutinied off Puerto Rico and surrendered her to the Spaniards at La Guaira. Recaptured by the boats of the Surprise at Puerto Cabello in October 1799, she was, in the museum's words, the most sought-after prize for the British in the West Indies; Hamilton was knighted for the exploit.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Nicholas Pocock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory Named ship
The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, 1822 to 1824
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0565)
Medium Oil on canvas
Turner's only work by royal command, and the largest painting of his career, was ordered by George IV to hang beside de Loutherbourg's First of June at St James's Palace. He borrowed an Admiralty plan of Victory, yet folded several moments of the battle into one: the foremast crashes down carrying Nelson's flag, signal flags spelling 'duty' come down from the mainmast, and the dying admiral is only a highlighted crowd by the mainmast. Seamen, Victory's captain Hardy among them, criticised it on technical grounds, and in 1829 the king gave it to Greenwich Hospital. What Victory brings here is not a ship portrait but the weight of the price paid for the victory.
“His intention was to capture the human drama of the battle rather than the facts of the action.”
The real ship HMS Victory was Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. She survives at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, where visitors can stand on the spot where Nelson fell.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · royalnavymuseums.org.uk
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
L'Orient and the Spartiate Named ship
The Battle of the Nile: Destruction of 'L'Orient', 1 August 1798, 1825
Artist Mather Brown (1761 to 1831)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0510)
Medium Oil on canvas (unfinished)
In 1825 the British Institution invited painters to submit naval victories in competition for the new Naval Gallery at Greenwich Hospital, and George Arnald won with the Nile. Mather Brown showed a Battle of the Nile that year, and this signed but unfinished canvas may be it. L'Orient explodes in the background, but the foreground belongs to the sailors: the Spartiate's mainmast splitting and throwing men from the rigging, British boats hauling defeated Frenchmen from the water, and figures only sketched in on the bare canvas. Brown, a pupil of Benjamin West with phenomenal early success, died in poverty.
“died there in poverty, in a room crowded with unsold paintings”
The real ship L'Orient, 120 guns, flagship of the French Vice Admiral Brueys, blew up at 10 pm during the Battle of the Nile, killing the admiral and most of her company. The Spartiate, 70 guns, is shown with her mainmast breaking.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
L'Orient and HMS Swiftsure Named ship
The Destruction of 'L'Orient' at the Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798, 1825 to 1827
Artist George Arnald (1763 to 1841)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0509)
Medium Oil on canvas
The whole picture is lit by one ship dying. L'Orient, Brueys's flagship, explodes at ten at night, her orange glow filling the sky, and for some minutes both sides were so shocked that the firing stopped. In the centre Captain Hallowell's Swiftsure surges on the wave of the blast, her sails billowing, while boats in the foreground haul men from the water and sailors cling to floating spars. Arnald painted it as one of four modern history subjects commissioned for the Naval Gallery of Greenwich Hospital, and the museum points out the danger that masts and sails flying through the air posed to every ship around.
The real ship L'Orient, 120 guns, flagship of the French Vice Admiral Brueys, blew up at 10 pm during the Battle of the Nile, killing the admiral and most of her company. Swiftsure, 74 guns, was commanded by Captain Benjamin Hallowell.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory Named ship
The Fall of Nelson, Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, c. 1825
Artist Denis Dighton (1792 to 1827)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0552)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dighton takes us onto Victory's crowded upper deck at the instant Nelson falls, and his real subject is how few of the crew have noticed. Hardy advances with his back to us, Sergeant Secker is already at the admiral's side, and Midshipman Pollard levels a musket at the French marksman who fired the shot. All around, gun crews sponge and prime, marines fire towards the Santissima Trinidad and the Redoutable, and a wounded powder monkey echoes Nelson's gesture. The museum notes one telling error: Dighton gave Victory the high solid gunwales and round bow she only received some years after Trafalgar, changes influenced by the battle's heavy casualties.
The real ship HMS Victory was Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar. The high solid gunwales and round bow added some years after the battle were influenced by the heavy casualties suffered there. She is preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Caledonia Named ship
The Blockade of Toulon, 1810 to 1814: Pellew's Action, 5 November 1813, 1830
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0604)
Medium Oil on canvas
For years the British watched Toulon, and by the autumn of 1813 the French fleet inside had grown to 21 ships of the line. When part of it came out to exercise in November and the wind turned against it, Pellew's inshore frigates tried to cut it off and larger ships, his flagship among them, closed in. Luny paints the moment a French two-decker, left behind, takes Caledonia's broadside on her quarter, her main topmast falling, while Cosmao Kerjulien's squadron runs for harbour under the high coast. Painted seventeen years later, it is signed on a floating spar.
The real ship Caledonia, 120 guns, was the flagship of Vice Admiral Sir Edward Pellew during the blockade of Toulon; on 5 November 1813 his ships made contact with a French squadron that nonetheless escaped back into port.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Canonnière, HMS Tremendous and HMS Hindostan Named ship
The Fight of the Canonnière against HMS Tremendous and HMS Hindostan, 21 April 1806 (Combat de la Canonnière contre le Tremendous), 1832
Artist Pierre-Julien Gilbert (1783 to 1860)
Where to see it Musée de l'Histoire de France, Château de Versailles (MV 1445)
Medium Oil on canvas
Off Natal in April 1806 the frigate Canonnière, sent to reinforce a French squadron that, unknown to her captain, had already been destroyed, met a convoy of eleven Indiamen escorted by the 74-gun Tremendous and the 50-gun Hindostan. After a seven-hour chase the 74 closed, and Captain Bourayne fought her off by superior seamanship, manoeuvring so that the big ship's batteries could not bear while threatening to rake her, until the frigate could escape. Gilbert shows the Canonnière on the left, Tremendous in the centre and Hindostan on the right.
The real ship The Canonnière, a 40-gun frigate under César Joseph Bourayne, sailed from Cherbourg on 14 November 1805 to reinforce Linois in the Indian Ocean and reached Île de France in April 1806, finding no trace of his squadron.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikidata
Image: Pierre-Julien Gilbert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Victory and the British fleet at Trafalgar Named ship
The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805: Death of Nelson (copy after Clarkson Stanfield), c. 1836
Artist Clarkson Stanfield (1793 to 1867), copied by George Chambers (1803 to 1840)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0545)
Medium Oil on canvas
Stanfield painted his great Trafalgar for the United Service Club in Pall Mall and showed it at the Royal Academy in 1836; this canvas is George Chambers's copy of it. The museum calls it an unusual reading of the battle, seen from the lee rather than the weather side of the British fleet at about half past two in the afternoon, with sky filling three quarters of the picture. Stanfield had himself been pressed into the Royal Navy in 1808 and served in the guardship Namur at Sheerness, and the vast sky gives the fleets a sense of scale.
The real ship HMS Victory was Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. She is preserved at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia · royalnavymuseums.org.uk
Image: Clarkson Stanfield, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Bucentaure Named ship
The Glorious Fight of the Bucentaure against Three English Ships, Trafalgar, 21 October 1805 (Combat glorieux du vaisseau le Bucentaure contre trois vaisseaux anglais), 1836
Artist Auguste Mayer (1805 to 1890)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 15)
Medium Oil on canvas
Mayer, a Brest painter praised for his scrupulous accuracy in naval scenes, devoted six canvases in 1836 to the struggle of the Bucentaure, the French flagship at Trafalgar. In this one the two-decker, recognisable by her figurehead, is surrounded and fought to a standstill, her men clustered round the mainmast. The picture's records were probably lost in the Second World War and it was given a wrong title; the ship named as the Sandwich is generally held to be the Temeraire, with the dismasted Redoutable nearby, which puts the scene at the heart of the battle.
The real ship The Bucentaure, flagship of Vice Admiral Villeneuve, was raked by HMS Victory at Trafalgar and surrendered to HMS Conqueror. Her officers persuaded the prize crew to give up the ship on 22 October, but in the stormy dark she struck rocks near the Santa Catalina fort at Cádiz and sank on 23 October.
Sources Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Bellone, Minerve and Victor against HMS Nereide, Sirius, Magicienne and Iphigenia Named ship
The Battle of Grand Port, 23 August 1810 (Combat du Grand Port, 23 août 1810), c. 1837 to 1842
Artist Pierre-Julien Gilbert (1783 to 1860)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 55)
Medium Oil on canvas
The only naval battle commemorated on the Arc de Triomphe was fought among the reefs of Mauritius, and Gilbert, official painter of the French Navy at Brest, set the whole British disaster in one frame. Captain Pym's four frigates tried to attack Duperré's squadron inside Grand Port and became trapped in the narrow channels between reefs and sandbanks. From left to right the canvas shows the Iphigenia striking her colours, the Magicienne and Sirius being scuttled by fire, the surrendered Nereide, and the French Bellone and Minerve, with the Victor beyond.
The real ship Bellone and Minerve were French frigates and Victor a corvette in Duperré's squadron. Of the British frigates, two grounded and were scuttled to prevent capture, Nereide was captured, and Iphigenia was seized as she left the bay by Hamelin's squadron from Port Napoleon.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Pierre-Julien Gilbert, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Romulus Named ship
The French Ship Romulus Fighting Three British Ships at the Entrance to Toulon Roads, 13 February 1814 (Combat du vaisseau français le Romulus contre trois vaisseaux anglais à l'entrée de la rade de Toulon), 1837
Artist Pierre-Julien Gilbert (1783 to 1860)
Where to see it Musée de l'Histoire de France, Palace of Versailles (MV 1455), on deposit at the Luxembourg Palace
Medium Oil on canvas
In the last weeks of the Empire a French division under Julien Cosmao sailed from Toulon for Genoa, and on 13 February 1814 the new 74 Romulus found herself engaged by three British ships of the line, among them HMS Boyne and HMS Caledonia. Her captain, Rolland, sailed so close to the coast that she could not be cut off and got back into Toulon. Gilbert painted it for Versailles more than twenty years later, a ship saving herself and her honour at the very end of the war.
The real ship Romulus was a 74-gun Téméraire-class ship of the line launched at the Toulon arsenal on 31 May 1812. She escaped the action of 13 February 1814, and by 1821 had been cut down into a frigate and renamed Guerrière.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Luxembourg Palace, Paris, where the original is kept. Photo: Moonik, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Vengeur du Peuple Named ship
The Ship Vengeur (Le vaisseau le Vengeur), 1837
Artist Ambroise-Louis Garneray (1783 to 1857)
Medium Oil on canvas
Garneray joined the navy as a seaman at thirteen, sailed with Surcouf and spent eight years in British prison hulks, so the Vengeur was more to him than a subject. He painted her in 1837, more than forty years after the event, when the patriotic story that her crew had gone down fighting rather than surrender, spread by the Convention and already discredited by naval historians, was still alive in popular memory; Jules Verne would later borrow it for Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas. The ship here is less a vessel than a national monument.
The real ship Vengeur du Peuple was a 74-gun ship of the line built at Toulon and launched in 1766 as the Marseillois. Renamed in 1794, she was disabled in a furious duel with HMS Brunswick at the Glorious First of June, surrendered, and foundered a few hours later, taking almost half her crew with her.
Image: Ambroise-Louis Garneray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Vengeur du Peuple Named ship
The Third Battle of Ushant: the Vengeur du Peuple (La troisième bataille d'Ouessant), 1838
Artist Ambroise-Louis Garneray (1783 to 1857)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest
Medium Oil on canvas
Garneray, once a sailor under Surcouf and for eight years a prisoner of the British in the prison hulks, painted the most famous legend of the revolutionary navy. At the Glorious First of June in 1794, which the French call the third battle of Ushant, the Vengeur du Peuple fought a furious duel with HMS Brunswick, surrendered, and foundered hours later as British boats began their rescue, taking almost half her crew with her. The Convention turned the sinking into the tale of a crew going down fighting rather than yield. Historians discredited it, but the legend lived on in paintings and in Jules Verne.
The real ship Funded by the Marseille Chamber of Commerce and launched in 1766 as the Marseillois, a 74-gun ship, she fought at the Chesapeake and the Saintes, was renamed Vengeur du Peuple in February 1794 and foundered on 1 June 1794 after her duel with HMS Brunswick.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Ambroise-Louis Garneray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
The fleets of d'Orvilliers and Keppel, with HMS Victory Named ship
The Battle of Ushant, 27 July 1778 (Combat d'Ouessant), 1839
Artist Théodore Gudin (1802 to 1880)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 31 D), located at the Musée de l'Histoire de France, Versailles
Medium Oil on canvas
Gudin, one of the first two official Peintres de la Marine and court painter to Louis-Philippe, was commissioned by the king to paint ninety pictures of French naval history for Versailles, and Ushant was a natural choice: the first major sea battle of France's war with Britain in 1778. Thirty-two French ships of the line under the Comte d'Orvilliers met Keppel's thirty some 100 miles west of Ushant. No ship was lost on either side and the result was indecisive, but it led to recriminations and political quarrels in both countries.
The real ship The French fleet sailed from Brest under Vice Admiral the Comte d'Orvilliers; Admiral Augustus Keppel commanded the British from HMS Victory. The battle of 27 July 1778 ended indecisively with no ships lost and led to political recriminations in both countries.
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Vengeur du Peuple Named ship
The Sinking of the French Battleship Le Vengeur, 1842
Artist Ernest Slingeneyer (1820 to 1894)
Medium Oil on canvas
A Belgian student of Gustaf Wappers made his name with a French ship. Slingeneyer's canvas of the Vengeur going down at the battle of 1 June 1794 measured sixteen square metres and caused a sensation when it was shown in 1842, admired for a freer, more spontaneous and warmer manner than academic painting usually allowed. It was compared with Géricault's Raft of the Medusa, and its success brought him royal patrons in the Netherlands and Belgium. The legend of the ship's last moments gave Romantic painting exactly what it wanted: heroism, despair and the sea.
The real ship Vengeur du Peuple, a French 74 of Villaret de Joyeuse's fleet, surrendered to HMS Brunswick and foundered at the Glorious First of June; the Convention spread the legend that her crew went down fighting rather than surrender.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists.
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
USS Constitution and HMS Guerriere Named ship
The Constitution and the Guerriere, c. 1845
Artist Thomas Chambers (1808 to after 1866)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (62.256.5)
Medium Oil on canvas
Thomas Chambers, born in England and working in America as a prolific marine and landscape painter, took his design from an engraving by Cornelius Tiebout after Thomas Birch, then pushed the story forward: the Guerriere is shown with every mast broken, while Old Ironsides stands beside her. When the Met's signed painting came to light in the 1930s and 1940s, modern art enthusiasts embraced Chambers as an American Rousseau. Painted some three decades after the battle, the picture shows how the duel of August 1812 had passed into popular memory, retold with the freedom of a folk painter.
“He took certain liberties with his source, advancing the action and showing the British ship, H.M.S. Guerrière, with all its masts broken.”
The real ship USS Constitution, nicknamed Old Ironsides, defeated the British 38-gun frigate Guerriere under Captain James Richard Dacres on 19 August 1812, one of the most famous engagements in American naval history.
Sources The Met · ussconstitutionmuseum.org
Image: Thomas Chambers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Sviatoi Evstafii and Real Mustafa Named ship
The Battle in the Chios Strait, 24 June 1770 (Boy v Khiosskom prolive), 1848
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Aivazovsky National Art Gallery, Feodosia
Medium Oil on canvas
On 5 July 1770, 24 June by the Russian calendar, in the waters between Chios and the Anatolian coast, Admiral Spiridov in the Sviatoi Evstafii closed to within fifty to seventy metres of the Ottoman line and fought Hasan Pasha's Real Mustafa at close range. The Turkish ship was suddenly seen to be on fire; her mainmast came down on the Russian deck and the Sviatoi Evstafii blew up. It was the opening of the battle of Chesma, the first of a number of disastrous fleet battles for the Ottomans against Russia. Aivazovsky painted the scene in 1848 on a canvas more than two metres high.
The real ship Sviatoi Evstafii was Spiridov's flagship and blew up in the action of 5 July 1770 after the burning mainmast of the Real Mustafa, flagship of Hasan Pasha at the head of the Ottoman line, fell across her deck.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (RU) · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Tri Ierarkha, Evropa, Rostislav and the burning Ottoman fleet Named ship
The Battle of Chesma (Chesmenskii boi), 1848
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Aivazovsky National Art Gallery, Feodosia
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in 1848 from sketches Aivazovsky had made among the Greek islands and along the coast of Asia Minor in 1845, this is the night of 25 to 26 June 1770, when Russian ships broke into Chesma Bay and burned the Ottoman fleet at anchor. The Russian flagship Tri Ierarkha stands as a dark silhouette in the foreground while a boat carrying the crew of Lieutenant Ilyin's fireship pulls towards her; Evropa and Rostislav lie behind. The true subject is the fire: burning ships, flying masts, crimson smoke and the pale moon over it all. Scholars see the Romantic influence of Karl Bryullov here.
The real ship Tri Ierarkha was the flagship of the Russian fleet at Chesma, with Evropa and Rostislav among the ships that broke into the bay. Russian fireships, one commanded by Lieutenant Dmitry Ilyin, and gunfire set the anchored Ottoman fleet ablaze and destroyed almost all of it.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
HMS Colossus, the Argonaute, the Bahama and the Swiftsure Named ship
The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, 1848 to 1849
Artist Richard Henry Nibbs (1816 to 1893)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0555)
Medium Oil on canvas
Rather than the flagships, Nibbs paints one group of ships in the thick of the battle. Colossus fires into the French Argonaute, the Spanish Bahama strikes her colours with a union flag placed over her side, and the Swiftsure, a British ship taken by the French in 1801, is about to be recaptured. Wreckage of spars and sails drifts across the foreground. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1849 and later made into a lithograph, it carries on its back a detailed inscription listing the ships involved, so that each hull in the smoke has its name.
The real ship Swiftsure, a former British ship of the line, had been captured by the French in 1801 and was retaken at Trafalgar. The Spanish Bahama struck to Colossus in the same part of the battle.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Richard Henry Nibbs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Wachtmeister (Swedish ship of the line, captured) Named ship
The Battle of Oesel, 24 May 1719, 19th century
Artist Alexey Bogolyubov (1824 to 1896)
Medium Oil on canvas
Off the island of Ösel, now Saaremaa, in 1719 a Russian squadron of seven warships under Captain Naum Senyavin caught Commodore Wrangel's three Swedish ships and captured them all, for only eighteen Russian casualties. It was the first Russian naval victory won without ramming or boarding: the young navy of Peter the Great had beaten the Swedes by gunnery and seamanship. Bogolyubov painted the battle in the nineteenth century, long after the event. The Swedish flagship Wachtmeister, built in 1681, was taken after heavy fighting.
The real ship Wachtmeister, built in 1681, was the Swedish flagship at Ösel and was captured after heavy fighting, together with the frigate Karlskrona Vapen and the brigantine Bernhardus. The Russian squadron included Portsmouth, Devonshire and Natalia.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Alexey Bogolyubov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Confiance and the Kent Named ship
The Taking of the 'Kent' by Robert Surcouf in the Gulf of Bengal, 7 October 1800 (Abordage du Kent), c. 1850
Artist Ambroise-Louis Garneray (1783 to 1857)
Where to see it Musée d'Histoire de Saint-Malo (D.1975.2.1), on deposit from the Centre national des arts plastiques (FNAC PFH-1002)
Medium Oil on canvas
Garneray was there. As a seventeen-year-old ensign in Robert Surcouf's privateer Confiance, he took part in the boarding and capture of the East Indiaman Kent off the Sand Heads near Calcutta on 7 October 1800, a ship carrying 437 people after she had rescued the crew of another vessel. It was the only time he made money as a sailor. Between that day and this canvas lay eight years in British prison hulks off Portsmouth and a career as the first official painter of the French Navy. Few battle pictures carry such personal memory.
“But for piracy, I believe that I practiced about all kinds of navigation”
The real ship The Kent, a 40-gun East Indiaman of 824 tons under Captain Robert Rivington, was taken by Surcouf's Confiance off the Sand Heads near Calcutta on 7 October 1800.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Ambroise-Louis Garneray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
USS President Named ship
The United States Frigate 'President' Engaging the British Squadron, 1815, 1850
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (formerly Corcoran Gallery of Art, 2014.136.82)
Medium Oil on canvas
In January 1815, after a year blockaded in New York, the President tried to run the British blockade under Stephen Decatur and was chased by the squadron of Endymion, Majestic, Pomone and Tenedos; crippled by the Endymion, she was taken soon after. Fitz Henry Lane returned to that last stand thirty-five years later. A lone American frigate against a squadron is a theme of honour in defeat, and Lane gives it the full width of the sea.
The real ship USS President, a heavy frigate nominally rated at 44 guns and one of the original six frigates of the United States Navy, was built at New York under Forman Cheesman and later Christian Bergh and launched on 10 April 1800. Captured on 15 January 1815, she served in the Royal Navy as HMS President until broken up in 1818.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · National Gallery of Art
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
USS United States and HMS Macedonian Named ship
Capture of H.B.M. Frigate Macedonian by U.S. Frigate United States, October 25, 1812, c. 1852
Artist Thomas Chambers (1808 to 1869)
Where to see it Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1992.18)
Medium Oil on canvas
Chambers gives this famous duel the look of a folk banner: a dark rolling sea curled with white, clouds piled like cotton, and two frigates in profile. On the right United States, her sails shot through but drawing, fires a broadside under a huge Stars and Stripes; on the left Macedonian, her rigging in ruins and canvas in tatters, still flies her red ensign. Near Madeira on 25 October 1812 Stephen Decatur's heavy frigate won a long, bloody fight, captured the British ship and brought her home, the first British warship ever brought into an American harbour.
The real ship USS United States, completed in 1797, was the first of the six original frigates of the US Navy, rated at 44 guns with thirty-two 24-pounders on her main deck. HMS Macedonian, under John Surman Carden, was captured by her near Madeira and brought back to the United States.
Image: Thomas Chambers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Senyavin's squadron and the Ottoman fleet Unnamed
The Battle of Athos, 19 June 1807 (Afonskoe srazhenie), 1853
Artist Alexey Bogolyubov (1824 to 1896)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bogolyubov's picture of 1853 looks back to the main sea battle of the Russo-Turkish war of 1806 to 1812. Vice Admiral Dmitry Senyavin had spent weeks trying to draw the Kapudan Pasha Seyid Ali out of the Dardanelles; when he caught up with the Ottoman ships on the morning of 1 July 1807, they were drawn up in a straight line heading north, and he brought his ten ships of the line down on them. For a painter trained as a naval officer it was a lesson in tactics as much as a spectacle, painted in bright Aegean light.
The vessels The Battle of Athos (or Lemnos) was fought on 1 and 2 July 1807 (New Style) between Senyavin's ten Russian ships of the line and Seyid Ali's Ottoman squadron; it was a Russian victory.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Alexey Bogolyubov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Infante Don Pelayo and Santísima Trinidad Named ship
The Battle of Cape St Vincent: the Pelayo comes to the Aid of the Santísima Trinidad (Combate de San Vicente: el navío Pelayo acude en auxilio del navío Santísima Trinidad), 1858
Artist Antonio de Brugada (1804 to 1863)
Where to see it Museo Naval, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
Spain remembered Cape St Vincent not for Nelson's boarding but for a rescue. On 14 February 1797 the Spanish flagship Santísima Trinidad, the largest ship afloat, had struck her colours when Captain Cayetano Valdés brought the Infante Don Pelayo to her aid; the flagship raised her colours again and later got away with two of her escorts. Brugada, a liberal exile who studied marine painting under Gudin in Paris and supported the ageing Goya on his walks in Bordeaux, later became honorary court painter to Isabel II. In 1858 he gave a heavy defeat its moment of honour.
The real ship The Santísima Trinidad, flagship of Admiral de Córdoba and mounting 130 guns at St Vincent, was the largest ship afloat at the time; she escaped after the battle and was captured at Trafalgar in 1805. The Infante Don Pelayo was a Spanish ship of the line under Cayetano Valdés.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (ES) · Wikipedia
Image: Antonio de Brugada, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Rostislav and Chichagov's squadron at anchor Named ship
The Battle of the Reval Roads, 2 May 1790 (Srazhenie na Revelskom reide), 1860
Artist Alexey Bogolyubov (1824 to 1896)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bogolyubov, who left the Naval Cadet Corps as a midshipman in 1841 and was appointed painter to the Main Naval Staff in 1853, made the navy's history his subject, and this canvas recalls one of the Baltic fleet's steadiest days. On 2 May 1790 (Old Style) Admiral Vasily Chichagov kept his outnumbered squadron at anchor in a line in the Reval roadstead and let Duke Karl's Swedish fleet run past his broadsides in a strong wind. The Swedish gunnery went wide, their flagship drifted onto Rostislav's grapeshot, and the day ended in a clear Russian victory.
The real ship Rostislav was a 100-gun ship of the line and Chichagov's flagship at Reval, captained by his son Pavel Chichagov. The Russian force of ten ships of the line and five frigates lay at anchor in a line from Reval harbour towards the Viimsi peninsula.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (RU)
Image: Alexey Bogolyubov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Vétéran Named ship
The Vétéran entering Concarneau (Le Vétéran entrant à Concarneau), c. 1861
Artist Michel Bouquet (1807 to 1890)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest (D 875.2.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1806 Napoleon's youngest brother, Jérôme Bonaparte, in command of the Vétéran, found himself alone after a hurricane scattered Willaumez's squadron. He cruised off Quebec destroying merchantmen, then brought his ship home through the British blockade. With the help of a sailor who had once fished these waters, he took a ship of the line into the shallow harbour of Concarneau. Bouquet, a Breton landscape and marine painter and pupil of Gudin, paints that moment of escape, a feat that also left the Vétéran trapped in the harbour, unable to leave for years.
The real ship Vétéran was ordered at Brest in 1794 as the Magnanime, renamed Quatorze Juillet and then Vétéran, and launched on 18 July 1803. She sailed under Jérôme Bonaparte in the Atlantic campaign of 1806, was trapped at Concarneau for years, later reached Lorient and Brest, and was broken up in 1842.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Survivors of the Spanish ship of the line Neptuno Named ship
An Episode of the Battle of Trafalgar (Episodio de la batalla de Trafalgar, also called Náufragos de Trafalgar), 1862
Artist Francisco Sans Cabot (1828 to 1881)
Where to see it Museo del Prado, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
Spain remembered Trafalgar through its survivors as well as its dead. This vast canvas, more than four metres wide, shows the men of the Spanish ship of the line Neptuno, wrecked after the battle near the castle of Santa Catalina at El Puerto de Santa María, taking refuge by the fortress. Sans Cabot painted it in 1862 and it became the work he was known for as a history painter; from 1873 until his death he was director of the Museo del Prado, which holds the picture. Here the ship is present through her loss.
The real ship Neptuno was an 80-gun Spanish ship of the line built at the royal dockyard of Ferrol and launched in 1795, name ship of her class. She fought at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 and was wrecked afterwards near the castle of Santa Catalina, El Puerto de Santa María.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (ES)
Image: Francisco Sans Cabot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Pommern and Golitsyn's galley fleet Named ship
The Battle of Grengam, 27 July 1720 (Grengamskoe srazhenie), 1866
Artist Alexey Bogolyubov (1824 to 1896)
Where to see it State Russian Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Bogolyubov painted the last major sea battle of the Great Northern War for a navy that treasured its Petrine victories. At Grengam in the Åland skerries General Mikhail Golitsyn drew Vice Admiral Siöblad's Pommern and her consorts into waters where skerries, shoals and narrow channels took away the freedom of the deeper sailing ships; one ran aground, and the Russian galleys, crowded with soldiers, closed for boarding. Four Swedish vessels were taken, though Pommern herself fought her way out to open water. The picture turns on that contrast of sail and oar among the rocks.
The real ship Pommern was the Swedish ship of the line of Carl Georg Siöblad's squadron at Grengam on 27 July 1720 (Old Style). Russian forces captured four Swedish vessels, but Pommern disengaged and reached open water; the battle is generally regarded as a Russian victory, though its scale has been disputed by later historians.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (RU) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Alexey Bogolyubov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Öland Named ship
The "Öland" Fighting with English Men-of-War in 1704 (Linjeskeppet Öland i strid med engelska örlogsskepp 1704), 1870
Artist Albert Berg (1832 to 1916)
Where to see it Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NM 1114)
Medium Oil on canvas
Off Orford Ness on 7 August 1704 an English squadron of eight ships of the line and a frigate demanded that the Swedish convoy escort Öland salute. Captain Gustaf von Psilander, under orders from Charles XII never to salute foreign ships first, refused, and his lieutenant Herman Schmidt, sent across in the gig, answered the English captain with a question. Berg paints the four-hour fight that followed, Öland amid English ships in drifting smoke. Heavily damaged, she tied her flag in the middle as a signal of distress, and so never struck her colours.
“What obligation does the King of Sweden owe the Queen of England?”
The real ship Öland was a 56-gun Swedish ship of the line escorting a merchant convoy. Boarded after the Battle of Orford Ness in 1704, she and her crew were released at the demand of Charles XII, but she sank north of Denmark on the way home.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (SV)
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Perry's boat, between USS Lawrence and USS Niagara Named ship
Battle of Lake Erie, 1873
Artist William Henry Powell (1823 to 1879)
Where to see it United States Senate, U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C. (33.00008.000)
Medium Oil on canvas
The hero of this great staircase picture, more than eight metres wide, is not a ship but a small boat. With his flagship Lawrence badly damaged on 10 September 1813, Oliver Hazard Perry had himself rowed through enemy fire to the Niagara. Powell first painted the scene for the Ohio statehouse; its success led Congress in 1865 to ask for a larger version, finished in 1873. Perry's thirteen-year-old brother Alexander grasps his coat, the helmsman gestures for him to sit, and a dead sailor floats in the water nearby.
The real ship USS Lawrence and USS Niagara were brigs of Oliver Hazard Perry's squadron on Lake Erie. When Lawrence was disabled Perry transferred to Niagara by boat and went on to win the battle of 10 September 1813.
Sources senate.gov · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: William Henry Powell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Elefanten and the Russian galley fleet Named ship
The Battle of Gangut, 27 July 1714 (Srazhenie pri Gangute), 1877
Artist Alexey Bogolyubov (1824 to 1896)
Medium Oil on canvas
Gangut was the first important victory of the Russian fleet, and it is still commemorated in Russia as a Day of Military Honour. In a morning calm the Russian galleys broke past the Swedish battle fleet, then pushed Rear Admiral Nils Ehrenskiöld's small detachment back until he formed a defensive line between two islands, his largest ship, the pram Elefanten, broadside on. He refused to surrender; after the attack of 27 July 1714 he was taken prisoner on the deck of his own flagship. Russians later embellished the story by calling the flat-bottomed pram a frigate.
The real ship Elefanten was an oared, flat-bottomed gun pram and the flagship of Nils Ehrenskiöld's detachment at Gangut (Hanko). She was captured on 27 July 1714 (Old Style) with the admiral on her deck.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Alexey Bogolyubov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Algésiras Named ship
The Algésiras at the Battle of Trafalgar (De Algérisas in de zeeslag van Trafalgar), 1879
Artist Hendrik Frans Schaefels (1827 to 1904)
Where to see it Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), inv. 1127
Medium Oil on canvas
An Antwerp painter's view of Trafalgar, signed in 1879 and bought that year at the Antwerp Triennial Exhibition. Schaefels chose the Algésiras, flagship of Rear Admiral Charles Magon, a ship with an extraordinary story: boarded and captured by the British during the battle, she was recaptured by her own crew in the storm that followed and found shelter in Cádiz. On a canvas more than two metres wide, the painter gives the drama of the day to a ship of the losing side.
The real ship Algésiras was a 74-gun Téméraire-class ship of the line, ordered from the Lorient arsenal, built at its annex at Caudan and launched in 1804. After Trafalgar she sheltered at Cádiz, was captured by the Spanish when Spain switched sides in 1808, sank at her moorings in 1818, was refloated, and finally sank from neglect in 1829.
Image: Hendrik Frans Schaefels, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
San Juan Nepomuceno Named ship
The Death of Churruca at Trafalgar (Muerte de Churruca en Trafalgar), 1892
Artist Eugenio Álvarez Dumont (1864 to 1927)
Where to see it Museo del Prado, Madrid (P06301), on deposit at the Instituto Cabrera Pinto, La Laguna
Medium Oil on canvas
Cosme Damián Churruca, captain of the San Juan Nepomuceno, became Spain's hero of Trafalgar. Within sight of the enemy he had his colours nailed to the mast, so that they came down only with his death. Facing six British ships, his crew fought with precision and courage until a cannon ball took off his leg, and he died admired by his enemies. Álvarez Dumont won an honourable mention for an early sketch of the subject as a student in Rome. The ship herself became a memorial: towed to Gibraltar, she kept her captain's cabin closed under a plaque bearing his name in gold.
The real ship San Juan Nepomuceno, a 74-gun two-decker, was built at the Real Astillero de Guarnizo in Cantabria and served the Spanish Navy from 1766. Captured at Trafalgar after Churruca's death, she was taken to Gibraltar, where visitors to Churruca's cabin were asked to uncover their heads, and was sold for breaking up in 1816.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (ES)
Image: Eugenio Álvarez Dumont, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Achille Named ship
Trafalgar: Episode of the Ship Achille, 22 October 1805 (Trafalgar, épisode du vaisseau l'Achille, 22 octobre 1805), 1897
Artist Charles Fouqueray (1869 to 1956)
Where to see it Musée Petiet, Limoux (897.003)
Medium Oil on canvas
Fouqueray, who became Peintre de la Marine in 1908, took for his subject one of the darkest moments of Trafalgar for France: the Achille, destroyed when her magazine exploded at the end of the battle. At least 190 of her crew were rescued, and the rescue of one woman from the ship had already inspired a painting in 1817. For a French artist of the 1890s the burning Achille could carry the meaning the Vengeur had carried a century before.
The real ship Achille was a 74-gun Téméraire-class ship of the line laid down at Rochefort in 1802 and launched on 17 November 1804. She served in the Trafalgar campaign, including the Battle of Cape Finisterre in July 1805, and was destroyed at Trafalgar when her magazine exploded.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée Petiet, Limoux, where the original is kept. Photo: Tylwyth Eldar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
Perry's boat from Lawrence to Niagara Named ship
Cyrus Tiffany in the Battle of Lake Erie, September 13, 1813, 1943
Artist Martyl (Martyl Schweig Langsdorf) (1917 to 2013)
Where to see it Recorder of Deeds Building, 515 D Street NW, Washington, D.C.
Medium Mural
Painted around 1943 for the Recorder of Deeds building in Washington, Martyl's mural places Cyrus Tiffany beside Oliver Hazard Perry in the famous boat crossing of Lake Erie. Tiffany, an elderly African-American fifer and sailor known as Old Tiffany, was Perry's personal servant, and he is said to have shielded Perry as they transferred from the damaged Lawrence to the Niagara. His part is rarely mentioned in accounts of the battle. The artist, who later drew the Doomsday Clock for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, gave the small boat a different hero.
The real ship On 10 September 1813 Perry left his damaged flagship USS Lawrence in a boat and transferred to USS Niagara, from which he won the Battle of Lake Erie. Tiffany continued to serve with Perry; some records show him dying aboard USS Java in 1818.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons · Library of Congress
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Painting
USS Enterprise and HMS Boxer Named ship
USS Enterprise versus HMS Boxer, 5 September 1813, undated
Artist Dwight Shepler (1905 to 1974)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C. (NH 47013-KN)
Medium Painting
Off Pemaquid Point, Maine, on 5 September 1813, two small brigs fought one of the sharpest actions of the War of 1812. USS Enterprise under Lieutenant William Burrows met HMS Boxer under Commander Samuel Blyth, who had his colours nailed to the mast. Within half pistol shot Blyth was killed in the first exchanges and Burrows fell mortally wounded; after thirty minutes Boxer was a wreck with three feet of water in her hold. The dying Burrows declined Blyth's sword, directing that it be sent to the dead captain's family. Shepler, a Second World War combat artist, painted the duel.
“I am satisfied, I die contented”
The real ship Enterprise, built as a schooner in Maryland in 1799 and rebuilt as a brig before the war, carried fourteen 18-pounder carronades and two long 9-pounders with 102 men; HMS Boxer had twelve 18-pounder carronades and two long 6-pounders with 66 men. Boxer was taken into Portland, auctioned for $9,775 and served for some years as a merchantman; Enterprise was wrecked in the West Indies in 1823.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Battles 1700 to 1815 · Print
Loire, HMS Anson and HMS Kangaroo Named ship
The Fifth Fight of the Loire off the Coast of Ireland, 27 Vendémiaire Year 7 (Cinquième Combat soutenu par la Loire sur la Côte d'Irlande le 27 Vendémiaire, An 7), undated
Artist Louis-Philippe Crépin (1772 to 1851), engraved by Jean Lambert
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAG8995)
Medium Print (engraving and etching)
The French expedition to Ireland in 1798 was broken at Tory Island, but the frigate Loire did not give up. Carrying 664 men, including artillery for the troops ashore, she escaped into Black Cod Bay, was hunted down by a British frigate squadron, fought the Mermaid and the brig Kangaroo to a standstill on 17 October, and the next day fought again against the Anson and Kangaroo until her ammunition was gone and she had to strike. The print's title counts this as the fifth fight the Loire sustained off the Irish coast: a defeat recorded as an epic.
The real ship Loire, a 38-gun frigate, was captured on 18 October 1798 with 48 of her men killed and 75 wounded, and taken into British service as HMS Loire; in 1803 her boats captured the French brig Venteux off the Île de Batz.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Lord Exmouth's Anglo-Dutch squadron Unnamed
Bombardment of Algiers, 1820
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Oil on canvas
Luny painted the Algiers bombardment four years after the event as a night piece. Exmouth's ships stand in the middle ground attacking the shore defences, the port itself hidden in billowing smoke, and the only light in the picture comes from a towering fire near the centre, behind the fleet. The chiaroscuro turns a punitive naval action into a drama of flame and darkness in which British victory is plainly close.
The vessels On 27 August 1816 an Anglo-Dutch squadron under Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers to end the Dey's enslavement of Christian captives. The Dey accepted terms and a treaty signed on 24 September 1816 freed more than 1,000 slaves.
Sources Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
The British fleet off Algiers Unnamed
The British Fleet Forming a Line off Algiers, 1829
Artist Robert Salmon (1775 to after 1845)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Medium Oil on canvas
Robert Salmon, English-born, arrived in Boston in August 1828 and soon began a series of three large paintings on the bombardment of Algiers in 1816. His own inventory records this one as number 630, the first of 1829, begun on the first of January and finished on the thirtieth. The museum notes he chose the subject with care, since the United States had fought its own wars with the Barbary States. Rather than the fire and smoke of the bombardment, he shows the moment before: the British fleet forming its line off Algiers.
“the British fleet forming the line in the vicinity of Algears”
The vessels Pellew's squadron of 1816, with the Queen Charlotte as flagship and a small Dutch force in company, bombarded Algiers on 27 August 1816 and freed 1,083 Christian slaves and the British consul.
Sources MFA Boston · Royal Museums Greenwich
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Queen Charlotte, HMS Impregnable and HMS Minden Named ship
The Bombardment of Algiers, 27 August 1816, 1836
Artist George Chambers the Elder (1803 to 1840)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0617)
Medium Oil on canvas
In August 1816 Sir Edward Pellew's squadron, joined by a small Dutch force, arrived off Algiers to demand the release of the detained British consul and more than a thousand Christian slaves. When no reply came, the fleet opened fire. Chambers, who went to Plymouth to sketch men-of-war for this commission, fills the foreground with boats, one with a howitzer in her bow and others rescuing men from the water, while the Minden fires her broadside and the Queen Charlotte engages the harbour batteries, engulfed in flame, with Algiers rising up the hills behind the smoke. It was painted for the Naval Gallery at Greenwich Hospital and shown at the British Institution in 1837.
“the fleet bombarded Algiers in the most spectacular of several similar punitive actions of this period”
The real ship Queen Charlotte, 100 guns, flew Pellew's flag at Algiers, with the Impregnable, 98, and Minden, 74, in the line. The action freed 1,083 Christian slaves and the British consul, forced restitution and peace between Algiers and the Dutch, and Pellew was raised to a viscountcy as Lord Exmouth.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: George Chambers the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Print
Nemesis Named ship
The Hon. E.I. Co. Iron Steam Ship Nemesis Destroying the Chinese War Junks in Anson's Bay, 7 January 1841, 1843
Artist Edward Duncan (1803 to 1882)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH8192)
Medium Aquatint and etching
On 7 January 1841, during the First Opium War, the East India Company's iron steamer Nemesis, commanded by William Hutcheon Hall, went into Anson's Bay near Chuenpee with the boats of Sulphur, Calliope, Larne and Starling and destroyed a fleet of Chinese war junks. Duncan's print, published in 1843 from his own oil painting, sets Nemesis broadside in the right background while a junk blows apart in the middle distance and men cling to wreckage all around. It is an uncomfortable image now, but a telling one: a ship built as the first fully iron warship, turning an old-style fleet to wreckage.
“built experimentally as the first fully iron warship”
The real ship Nemesis, launched in 1839, was the first British ocean-going iron warship, built by John Laird at Birkenhead for the East India Company and serving with its Bombay Marine in the First Opium War of 1839 to 1842. On 7 January 1841 she and ships' boats destroyed Chinese war junks in Anson's Bay, near the forts guarding the Pearl River.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Mercury (Merkurii) Named ship
The Brig Mercury after Defeating Two Turkish Ships Meets the Russian Squadron, 1848
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it State Russian Museum, St Petersburg (Zh 2209)
Medium Oil on canvas
This is the quiet sequel to the fight. Aivazovsky, then painter to the Main Naval Staff, shows the last moment of the Mercury's ordeal of 14 May 1829: the brig under full sail and holed by enemy shot, running down to rejoin a group of Russian ships after beating off the Selimiye and Real Bey. Instead of smoke and battle there is only a small ship coming home to the fleet in the evening light, which makes her survival feel all the more improbable.
The real ship Mercury was a Sevastopol-built brig launched in 1820 to patrol the Caucasus coast. Under Captain-Lieutenant Alexander Kazarsky she beat off two Ottoman ships of the line mounting 184 guns between them on 14 May 1829. She was broken up in 1857.
Sources rusmuseumvrm.ru · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, where the original is kept. Photo: Andrey Korzun, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Nakhimov's Black Sea squadron and the burning Ottoman fleet Unnamed
The Battle of Sinop, 18 November 1853 (Night after the Battle)
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Aivazovsky painted Sinop in the same year as the battle, a canvas more than three metres wide, and chose not the cannonade but the night that followed it. Smoke, fire and wreckage fill the harbour where the Ottoman squadron has been destroyed. At Sinop Nakhimov's ships, armed with the new explosive shell guns, set the wooden Ottoman ships ablaze, and only one steamer escaped. The victory gave Russia control of the Black Sea, and the painter lets the fire and the darkness carry the weight of it.
The vessels Nakhimov's squadron of six ships of the line, two frigates and three steamers destroyed the Ottoman squadron at Sinop, losing no ships; only the steam frigate Taif escaped. It was the first sea battle in which Paixhans shell guns were used.
Sources ivanaivazovsky.arthive.com · Wikipedia · ar.culture.ru
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg, where the original is kept. Photo: A.Savin, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Print
HMS Albion, HMS Queen, HMS Firebrand and HMS Vesuvius with the allied fleets Named ship
The Bombardment of Sebastopol by the Combined Fleets, Oct. 17th 1854, 1855
Artist Edward Wolfe Brooker (active 1850s), published by Day and Son and others
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH8244)
Medium Tinted lithograph
On 17 October 1854 the British and French fleets stood in to bombard the forts of Sevastopol. Brooker was aboard HMS Spitfire, and his print, published the following March, crams in at least twenty-three vessels, from ships of the line to paddle steamers, all pouring fire at a target half lost in smoke. Firebrand is in the foreground, seen from astern, beside the 90-gun Albion on the left; the Queen is near the centre with the paddle steamer Vesuvius alongside, and the arcs of shells are traced across the sky.
“At least twenty-three separate vessels, ranging from ships of the line to paddles steamers”
The real ship Albion (1842), 90 guns, and Queen (1839) were British ships of the line, and Firebrand (1842) and Vesuvius (1839) steamers, all in the Anglo-French attack on the Sevastopol forts on 17 October 1854 during the Crimean War.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Duke of Wellington and the Anglo-French Baltic fleet Named ship
The Bombardment of Sveaborg, 9 August 1855
Artist John Wilson Carmichael (1799 to 1868)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0636)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Crimean War was fought in the Baltic too, and Carmichael spent three months there in 1855 drawing the campaign for the Illustrated London News. His Sveaborg is seen from behind the line of attack: the great ships, Duke of Wellington among them, anchored in deep water while steam frigates and a line of mortar boats do the work, the sky dotted with bursts and smoke rings from the mortars. In the foreground men in open boats and on the rocks wave their hats and cheer, and the rigging of the big ships is crowded with sailors. The museum notes drily that the effect on the war was negligible.
“the effect on the course of the war against Russia was negligible”
The real ship Duke of Wellington carried Rear Admiral Richard Dundas, commanding the British ships of the Anglo-French Baltic fleet. At Sveaborg, the fortress guarding the approach to St Petersburg and to Helsinki, the fleet anchored out of range of the old guns and began shelling on 9 August 1855, damaging the dockyard, ships and stores.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Wilson Carmichael, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Nakhimov's squadron at Sinop Unnamed
The Battle of Sinop, 18 November 1853, 1860
Artist Alexey Bogolyubov (1824 to 1896)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
At Sinop on the Black Sea coast, Vice Admiral Pavel Nakhimov led his squadron into the Ottoman anchorage so fast that the shore batteries could not stop it, and his flagship opened fire at 400 metres from the Ottoman flagship. Over four hours the Turks lost around fifteen ships; only the steam frigate Taif escaped. Bogolyubov's canvas records what the Central Naval Museum calls the last major battle of the age of sail. It was also the first sea battle fought with explosive shell guns, which set the wooden Ottoman ships on fire and pushed navies towards the ironclad.
“It was the last major battle of the Age of Sail.”
The vessels Nakhimov's flagship Imperatritsa Maria, built at Nikolaev and launched on 9 May 1853, was the last sail-powered ship of the line built for the Russian Navy and carried eight 68-pounder Paixhans shell guns. At Sinop she fired 2,128 rounds and took 60 hits. Trapped at Sevastopol, she was scuttled in 1855 to block the harbour.
Sources ar.culture.ru · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg, where the original is kept. Photo: A.Savin, FAL, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Savannah and USS Perry Named ship
Capture of the Savannah by the U.S.S. Perry, 1861
Artist Fritz Müller (1814 to 1861 or after)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1967.20.2)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 2 June 1861 the schooner Savannah became the first privateer to leave Charleston harbour for the Confederacy. She soon chased another sail and discovered too late that it was the armed brig USS Perry. Her captain, Harrison Baker, surrendered his lightly armed ship, and the capture of Savannah led to court cases that did much to define the nature of the war. The painting shows the little schooner in the foreground under the Confederate Stars and Bars, her crew on deck, while the square-rigged Perry follows behind under the Union flag: a naive ship portrait of a short adventure.
The real ship Savannah was a small Charleston schooner commissioned as a Confederate privateer and captured by the US Navy brig Perry in June 1861, soon after leaving port.
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Print
USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (ex-Merrimack) Named ship
Terrific Engagement between the "Monitor" 2 Guns, and "Merrimac" 10 Guns, in Hampton Roads, March 9th, 1862: The First Fight Between Ironclad Ships of War, 1862
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876), for Currier and Ives
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.40)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Fanny Palmer drew this version of the Hampton Roads duel for Currier and Ives in 1862, the year of the battle. The guns are counted in the title, two against ten, and the little Monitor, her round turret and the Stars and Stripes in the foreground, trades fire with the Confederate ironclad across the choppy water of the roads. The caption beneath claims more than the battle gave: in truth the two ironclads fought for about three hours and neither could do the other serious harm.
“In which the Merrimac was crippled, and the whole Rebel Fleet driven back to Norfolk.”
The real ship On 9 March 1862 USS Monitor fought CSS Virginia, built on the remains of the burned steam frigate Merrimack, for about three hours in Hampton Roads, the first combat between ironclad warships. Neither could seriously damage the other and the duel ended indecisively.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Danish blockading squadron at the Battle of Jasmund Unnamed
The Action off Swinemünde, 17 March 1864 (Affæren ud for Svinemünde 17. marts 1864)
Artist Carl Frederik Sørensen (1818 to 1879)
Where to see it Museum of National History, Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød
Medium Oil on canvas
Carl Frederik Sørensen painted this action in the year it was fought. On 17 March 1864 a Prussian squadron came out to attack the Danish ships blockading the coast off Rügen and met Edvard van Dockum's squadron: a screw frigate, a ship of the line and two steam corvettes. In an action lasting two hours the stronger Danish squadron forced the Prussians to withdraw, with damage and light casualties on both sides. It was a victory at sea in a war that Denmark lost on land, and Sørensen's canvas now hangs at Frederiksborg Castle.
The vessels At Jasmund the Danish squadron under van Dockum comprised one screw frigate, one ship of the line and two steam corvettes; the Prussian force under Eduard von Jachmann had a screw frigate, a screw corvette, a paddle steamer and six gunboats.
Sources Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Carl Frederik Sørensen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
CSS Alabama and USS Kearsarge Named ship
The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama, 1864
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
Medium Oil on canvas
On 19 June 1864 spectators on the French coast watched the Union Kearsarge sink the Confederate raider Alabama off Cherbourg. Manet was not there. He built the picture from press descriptions and had it on show in Alfred Cadart's gallery in the rue de Richelieu 26 days later. He gave three quarters of the canvas to a foaming turquoise, blue and grey sea under a high horizon, so the sinking Alabama sits near the top, the victor barely visible beyond her smoke, while a French boat hurries to sailors clinging to wreckage and the English yacht Deerhound stands by. Barbey d'Aurevilly found the sea more frightening than the battle.
The real ship Alabama was built in secret by John Laird Sons and Company at Birkenhead, launched as Enrica on 15 May 1862 and commissioned as a Confederate cruiser on 24 August 1862 after fitting out in the Azores; under Raphael Semmes she captured or burned 65 Union merchant ships. The wreck was found off Cherbourg by the French minehunter Circé in 1984.
Sources Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
USS Kearsarge Named ship
The Kearsarge at Boulogne, 1864
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1999.442)
Medium Oil on canvas
A few weeks after her victory off Cherbourg, the Kearsarge anchored off Boulogne-sur-Mer in July 1864, the first American warship to do so, and Manet went to see her, perhaps even going aboard to study her profile. This time he painted the ship itself, set near the top of the canvas beyond a fishing boat running in before the wind, the picture built in broad horizontal bands of water and sky. Manet wrote that he painted her the way she looks at sea, and the colour is laid on rich and unmuted, with sharp contrasts of light and shade. It is a portrait of a famous warship at rest.
The real ship Kearsarge, a steam sloop of war of 1,550 tons, was launched at Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine, on 11 September 1861. Chain cable hung along her midsection as protection for her machinery was hit twice in the fight with the Alabama. She was wrecked on Roncador Reef on 2 February 1894.
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
H. L. Hunley Named ship
Submarine Torpedo Boat H. L. Hunley, Dec. 6, 1863, 1864
Artist Conrad Wise Chapman (1842 to 1910)
Where to see it American Civil War Museum, Richmond, Virginia
Medium Oil on panel
Chapman was a Confederate soldier who served at Charleston from September 1863 to March 1864, sketching its defences as part of General Beauregard's campaign for his harbour plans, and he finished the series from those sketches in Rome, where his family lived. Here the long iron Hunley rests on timber blocks on a sunlit Charleston wharf, watched by a sailor and a seated soldier with his rifle, in December 1863, between her second fatal sinking and her one attack. It is a portrait of a machine that had already killed thirteen of her own men and would, two months later, become the first combat submarine to sink a warship, and vanish with her crew.
The real ship Built at Mobile, Alabama and launched in July 1863, Hunley sank twice at Charleston in 1863, killing thirteen men including her inventor Horace Lawson Hunley. On 17 February 1864 she sank the sloop USS Housatonic and was lost with all eight of her crew; found in 1995 and raised in 2000, she is preserved in North Charleston.
Image: Conrad Wise Chapman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Re d'Italia and Tegetthoff's ironclads Named ship
The Sea Battle of Lissa, 1866 (Slaget ved Lissa), 1868
Artist Carl Frederik Sørensen (1818 to 1879)
Where to see it Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna
Medium Oil on canvas
A Danish marine painter whose pictures found buyers at the courts of St Petersburg, London and Athens, Sørensen signed this canvas in 1868, two years after the battle it records. At Lissa on 20 July 1866 the Austrian fleet under Tegetthoff defeated the Italians in the first battle in which ironclads were used on a major scale. The picture shows its decisive moment: the Austrian flagship Erzherzog Ferdinand Max ramming the Italian ironclad Re d'Italia, which rolled over and sank. It now hangs in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna.
The real ship Re d'Italia was an armoured frigate built by William H. Webb in New York, launched in 1863 and commissioned into the Italian navy in 1864. At Lissa, her rudder disabled, she was rammed by Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, rolled over and sank with some 400 of her crew.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Carl Frederik Sørensen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
SMS Kaiser Named ship
Ship of the Line SMS Kaiser at the Battle of Lissa (Linienschiff "SMS Kaiser" in der Schlacht bei Lissa), 1868
Artist Konstantinos Volanakis (c. 1837 to 1907)
Where to see it Belvedere, Vienna (Inv. 2758)
Medium Oil on canvas
Volanakis, the Cretan who kept the books for a Greek merchant family in Trieste and filled his ledgers with sketches of ships, was sent by them to study in Munich, and became one of the greatest Greek painters of the sea. He signed this canvas in 1868, two years after Lissa, and it was bought for the imperial picture gallery in Vienna in 1873. His subject is the Kaiser, the wooden ship of the line that at Lissa engaged several Italian ironclads at once, rammed the Re di Portogallo and damaged the Affondatore: the only wooden ship of the line to fight an ironclad in battle.
The real ship SMS Kaiser, a 92-gun ship, was built at Pola and launched in October 1858, the last wooden ship of the line and the only screw-driven one built by the Austrians. Flagship of Anton von Petz's division at Lissa, she was rebuilt as an ironclad casemate ship from 1869 to 1873, renamed Bellona as a barracks ship in 1901 to 1902, and seized by Italy after the First World War; her final fate is unknown.
Sources sammlung.belvedere.at · Wikipedia
Image: Konstantinos Volanakis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Rossiya Named ship
The Capture of the Turkish Steamer Mersina by the Steamer Rossiya, 13 December 1877 (Vzyatie parokhodom Rossiya turetskogo parokhoda Mersina), 1877
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Aivazovsky painted this capture in the same year it happened. On 13 December 1877 the Rossiya, a mail and passenger steamer taken into the Black Sea Fleet and armed for cruising, intercepted the large Turkish military transport Mersina off the Anatolian coast. After a warning shot the Mersina tried to run, but Rossiya's powerful engines soon overhauled her, and after a second and third shot she stopped. A boarding party raised the St Andrew's flag on her mizzen above the Turkish colours, and the prize, with hundreds of soldiers aboard, was towed into Sevastopol the next day.
The real ship Built by A. Leslie and Co. at Newcastle and delivered in January 1872 to the Russian Steam Navigation and Trading Company (ROPiT) as a three-deck mail and passenger steamer of 2,600 tons. Enrolled in the Black Sea Fleet in September 1877, armed at Nikolaev and commanded by N. M. Baranov, formerly of the Vesta.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Veliky Knyaz Konstantin and her mine launches Named ship
Mine Attack by the Launches of the Steamer Veliky Knyaz Konstantin on the Turkish Ironclad Assari Shevket in the Sukhum Roads, 1877 (Minnaya ataka katerov parokhoda Veliky Knyaz Konstantin turetskogo bronenostsa Assari Shevket na Sukhumskom reyde), 1877
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
On the night of 11 to 12 August 1877 an eclipse of the moon was expected over Sukhum, and Stepan Makarov chose it for a secret attack. His ship Veliky Knyaz Konstantin lowered her steam launches six miles offshore; one blew a gap in the boom and two others exploded their mines close alongside the Ottoman ironclad Assari Shevket. What the attack achieved was disputed: Russian reports spoke of a hole and three days of repairs, while Hobart Pasha, the Englishman serving as admiral in the Ottoman navy, wrote to The Times that the ship was undamaged. Aivazovsky painted it the same year.
The real ship Veliky Knyaz Konstantin was an iron passenger steamer of ROPiT, laid down at La Seyne near Toulon in 1857 and converted to Makarov's design to carry mine launches; her boats made the world's first successful torpedo attack in the war of 1877 to 1878. Asar i Şevket, a central-battery ironclad launched in France in 1868, was broken up in 1909.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Numancia Named ship
The Bombardment of the Forts of El Callao, 2 May 1866 (Bombardeo de los fuertes de El Callao), second half of the 19th century
Artist Rafael Monleón (1843 to 1900)
Where to see it Museo Naval, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
Monleón studied painting in Valencia and sailed all over Europe as a merchant navy pilot before becoming painter, conservator and restorer at the Museo Naval in Madrid, and his experience at sea shows in his marine work. Here the Spanish squadron under Méndez Núñez bombards the forts of Callao on 2 May 1866, the final battle of the Chincha Islands war, with the armoured frigate Numancia at the centre of the canvas. Both sides claimed the day: Peruvian and American sources that the city was left without notable damage, Spanish accounts and French observers that almost all the shore guns were silenced.
The real ship Numancia, in commission from 1864 to 1912, fought at Callao and between 1864 and 1867 made the first circumnavigation of the world by an ironclad. She later served the Canton of Cartagena, was converted to a coast-defence ship in 1896 to 1898, and was wrecked in 1916 on her way to the breakers.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (ES) · Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Huáscar Named ship
The Death of Arturo Prat on the Deck of the Huáscar (Muerte de Arturo Prat en la cubierta del Huáscar), c. 1880
Artist Thomas Somerscales (1842 to 1927)
Where to see it Escuela Naval Arturo Prat, Valparaíso
Medium Oil on canvas
Somerscales, the English teacher and sailor who is also counted a Chilean painter, sets us on the deck of the Peruvian ironclad Huáscar at the Battle of Iquique, 21 May 1879. Her armoured turret fills the right of the picture; beyond, the masts and rigging of the Chilean corvette Esmeralda rise through the smoke. When Admiral Grau rammed the Esmeralda, Captain Arturo Prat tried to board the enemy with a single companion, Petty Officer Juan de Dios Aldea, and was shot on the Peruvian deck. Somerscales paints him in that moment, sword in hand and arm raised, alone on the ship that became the stage of a national legend.
The real ship Huáscar was a Peruvian ironclad with an armoured turret. At Iquique on 21 May 1879, commanded by Miguel Grau, she rammed the Chilean corvette Esmeralda, whose captain Arturo Prat was killed boarding her.
Image: Thomas Somerscales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Intibah Named ship
The Sinking of the Turkish Steamer Intibah by the Mine Launches of the Veliky Knyaz Konstantin, Batum, 14 January 1878, 1880
Artist Lev Lagorio (1826 to 1905)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
On the night of 14 January 1878 the steam launches of Makarov's mine transport Veliky Knyaz Konstantin crept into the Batum roads and sank the Turkish steamer Intibah. The Konstantin's boats are credited with the world's first successful torpedo attack. Lagorio, a Feodosia-born marine painter who had sailed on the naval steam frigate Groziashchy in the summer of 1845, painted the scene in 1880; the canvas is now in the Central Naval Museum. It is a small, dark picture of a moment that changed naval warfare.
The real ship Veliky Knyaz Konstantin was a passenger steamer of ROPiT, built at La Seyne near Toulon and converted in 1877 to Stepan Makarov's design to carry mine launches. The Intibah was an Ottoman steamer sunk by her launches in the Batum roads.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (RU)
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Veliky Knyaz Konstantin Named ship
The Steamer Veliky Knyaz Konstantin Cuts Off a Turkish Ironclad Shelling Colonel Shelkovnikov's Detachment at the Gagra Gorge, 7 August 1877, 1880
Artist Lev Lagorio (1826 to 1905)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lagorio gives the Konstantin a portrait rather than a battle. On 4 August 1877 Colonel Shelkovnikov telegraphed that his detachment, marching into Abkhazia, could not pass the Gagra gorge because a Turkish ironclad lay offshore. The Veliky Knyaz Konstantin was sent, and on 7 August she drew the enemy ship away from the troops on the mountain road; using her speed, she led the ironclad after her for two hours while the detachment passed out of range of its guns. It was the prelude to Makarov's famous raids, a merchant ship turned warship working under the Caucasus mountains.
The real ship Built at La Seyne near Toulon under an 1857 contract for ROPiT, the iron passenger steamer Veliky Knyaz Konstantin was converted to Makarov's design to carry mine launches; her boats later made the world's first successful torpedo attack.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (RU)
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Mansur al liwa (Ottoman flagship) and Kanaris's fireship Named ship
The Burning of the Turkish Flagship by Kanaris, 1881
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it National Gallery of Greece, Athens
Medium Oil on canvas
On the dark night of 18 June 1822, while the Ottoman fleet off Chios celebrated the Ramadan Bayram, Konstantinos Kanaris fixed his fireship firmly to the flagship Mansur al liwa, in reprisal for the massacre on Chios two months earlier. The fire reached the powder and the ship blew up; about two thousand men were killed or drowned, among them the Kapudan Pasha, Nasuhzade Ali Pasha. The deed made Kanaris a national hero. Aivazovsky painted it in 1881 on a large canvas, more than two metres wide, now in the National Gallery in Athens.
The real ship Mansur al liwa was an 84-gun Ottoman ship of the line, flagship of Kapudan Pasha Nasuhzade Ali Pasha; she was destroyed by Kanaris's fireship off Chios on the night of 18 June 1822.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
USS Hartford Named ship
An August Morning with Farragut: The Battle of Mobile Bay, 5 August 1864, 1883
Artist William Heysham Overend (1851 to 1898)
Where to see it Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford
Medium Oil on canvas
Overend puts us at the port taffrail of Farragut's flagship Hartford, looking back towards the wheel and quarterdeck, at the moment the Confederate ram Tennessee struck her a glancing blow on the port bow and the two ships ground past each other. Farragut stands on the quarter rail holding the rigging. The Englishman crossed to New York in 1882, interviewed survivors and enlisted the help of the admiral's son, and the canvas, three metres wide, is counted his greatest work. In 1886 the Hartford Courant campaigned to buy it for the Wadsworth Atheneum, fitting for the ship that bore the city's name.
The real ship Hartford, a wooden-hulled steam and sail ship, was Farragut's flagship at Mobile Bay, where his fleet forced its way past the forts protecting the bay and on 5 August 1864 the Confederate ironclad ram Tennessee tried to ram her.
Sources Wikipedia · connecticuthistory.org
Image: William Heysham Overend, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
SMS Schwarzenberg Named ship
The Battle of Heligoland, 1864: Schwarzenberg on Fire (Slaget ved Helgoland, "Schwarzenberg brænder"), 1889
Artist Carl Bille (1815 to 1898)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Bruun Rasmussen, 2000)
Medium Oil on canvas
Twenty-five years after the battle, the Danish marine painter Carl Bille returned to its turning point. The Austrian flagship Schwarzenberg has caught fire and heads for the neutral waters of British Heligoland, with the Radetzky covering her; to the right the Danish squadron, Niels Juel, Jylland and Hejmdal. Schwarzenberg caught fire three times that day and the last fire forced Tegetthoff to break off. Denmark claimed a tactical victory, though the blockade of the German coast had to be ended. For Danes it remained the proud moment of a lost war.
The real ship Schwarzenberg was an Austrian steam frigate and Tegetthoff's flagship at Heligoland on 9 May 1864, where she bore the brunt of the Danish fire and caught fire three times before withdrawing to neutral waters.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Mercury (Merkurii) Named ship
Brig Mercury Attacked by Two Turkish Ships, 1892
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Aivazovsky National Art Gallery, Feodosia
Medium Oil on canvas
On 14 May 1829 the little brig Mercury, commanded by Alexander Kazarsky, was attacked by the Ottoman ships of the line Selimiye and Real Bey, whose guns outnumbered hers almost ten to one. Rather than strike, the crew fought, damaged the spars and rigging of both pursuers and got away. Aivazovsky said that prints of heroes fighting the Turks were the first pictures that kindled his passion for painting, and in 1892 he returned to this story on a canvas more than three metres wide: the brig fighting two great warships under a blue summer morning sky, on a choppy sea.
The real ship Mercury, a 20-gun brig armed with 18 carronades and 2 long guns, was laid down at Sevastopol in 1819 and launched in May 1820, a shallow-draught vessel with oars built to patrol the Caucasus coast. She was broken up in 1857.
Sources ar.culture.ru · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Print
Fukui Maru Named ship
Commander Hirose's Great Achievement (Kaigun chūsa Hirose kun no dai ikun), 1904
Artist Hirose Yoshikuni (active 1904 to 1905)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2000.81a-c, Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection)
Medium Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and colour on paper, triptych
On the night of 26 March 1904 Lieutenant Commander Hirose Takeo, torpedo officer of the battleship Asahi, volunteered to take the old cargo ship Fukui Maru into the mouth of Port Arthur and sink her there to block the Russian fleet in. Hit by Russian artillery and a torpedo, she went down; Hirose, wounded, was killed while searching for survivors. Japan deified him as a war god, with a shrine in his home town of Taketa and a statue outside Manseibashi station in Tokyo, and printmakers pictured his sacrifice. This triptych is one of those memorials.
The real ship Fukui Maru was an old cargo vessel used as a blockship in the second, unsuccessful attempt to close the entrance to Port Arthur on the night of 26 March 1904. Hit by artillery and a torpedo from the Russian destroyer Silnyi, she sank; Hirose was posthumously promoted to commander.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Hirose Yoshikuni, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Print
A Russian battleship as a patient's head Myth and legend
Human Figure with a Russian Battleship for a Head, Operated on by Japanese Surgeons (from the series Rokoku seibatsu shōwa: Defeat of Russia, Tales of Laughter), 1904
Artist Baidō Hōsai (Utagawa Kunisada III) (1848 to 1920)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. (jpd.00941)
Medium Colour woodcut
Not every print of 1904 was heroic. In the comic series Defeat of Russia: Tales of Laughter the Russian fleet becomes a patient: a man whose head is a battleship lies on the operating table while grinning doctors and cooks gather round with dishes, as if for a feast. The joke plays on the damage done to Russia's warships at Port Arthur in the first months of the war. It is a glimpse of how Japanese printmakers laughed at the enemy, and of how completely the battleship had become a symbol of national power.
The legend An imaginary ship standing for the Russian Pacific Squadron, several of whose battleships and cruisers were damaged at Port Arthur in 1904.
Sources Library of Congress · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (JA)
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Print
Fuji Named ship
Lieutenant Commander Yamanaka, Chief Gunner of Our Ship Fuji, Fights Fiercely in the Naval Battle at the Entrance to Port Arthur, 1904
Artist Migita Toshihide (1862 to 1925)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2000.75a-c, Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Collection)
Medium Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and colour on paper, triptych
Toshihide, a designer of ukiyo-e war prints and painter in the Western style, here fixes on a single officer, the chief gunner of the battleship Fuji, fighting his guns at the mouth of Port Arthur. Fuji was really there: she fought in the Battle of Port Arthur on the second day of the war, 9 February 1904, when two shells hit her, killing two men and wounding ten. The print turns a steel warship into a stage for personal heroism, the way older prints staged the duels of samurai.
The real ship Fuji was the lead ship of her class of pre-dreadnought battleships, built for Japan by Thames Iron Works at Blackwall, London, and completed in 1897. She fought throughout the Russo-Japanese War, from the Battle of Port Arthur on its second day.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Migita Toshihide, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Print
Hayatori and Asagiri Named ship
The Second Attack on Port Arthur by the Hayatori and Asagiri (Yori dai ni Ryojun shōgeki Hayatori Asagiri yūsen zu), 1904
Artist Seisai (active 1904)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-P-2010-310-61)
Medium Colour woodblock print, triptych
Two named Japanese warships, Hayatori and Asagiri, are the heroes of this triptych, which the Rijksmuseum describes as the second Japanese attack on the Russian fleet, on 11 February 1904, with the two ships sending Russian vessels to the bottom. Here the small, fast torpedo craft take the place of the great battleships, and the print celebrates the daring of their crews. It is a rare portrait of the little ships that did some of the most dangerous work of the war's opening days.
The real ship Hayatori and Asagiri were Imperial Japanese Navy warships that, according to the print and the Rijksmuseum, took part in the second attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur on 11 February 1904.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Print
A Russian battleship sinking at Port Arthur Unnamed
The Sinking of a Russian Battleship in the Naval Battle at Port Arthur (Rojun kaisen Rokan chinpō), 1904
Artist Gakyōjin (active 1904)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-P-2010-310-70)
Medium Colour woodblock print, triptych
Issued as number seven of a pictorial report on the Russo-Japanese War, this triptych shows Russian sailors going down with their ship in the bay of Port Arthur, as the Rijksmuseum's description puts it; the battle, it adds, began with a Japanese surprise attack with torpedoes on unsuspecting Russian ships. Publishers issued such scenes in numbered series, like instalments of a newspaper. The drama is Japanese triumph; the drowning crew are its cost.
The vessels The Russian Pacific Squadron was based at the fortified naval base of Port Arthur, where Japanese torpedo attacks and bombardments damaged several of its battleships and cruisers in 1904.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Mikasa Named ship
Admiral Tōgō on the Bridge of the Mikasa (Mikasa kankyō no zu), 1906 (repainted after the Great Kantō earthquake)
Artist Tōjō Shōtarō (1865 to 1929)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Navy Ministry sent Tōjō to follow the war at sea in 1904 and in 1906 commissioned its naval battle pictures from him. This one shows Tōgō Heihachirō on the bridge of Mikasa at Tsushima on 27 May 1905, just after the Z flag was hoisted; the flag at the upper left is being lowered. Every figure is a real officer or rating, from Akiyama Saneyuki and Katō Tomosaburō to the young messengers, and the compass is wrapped in hammocks against shell splinters. The painter Uchida Iwao called it a masterpiece of Meiji war painting. The original burned in the Great Kantō earthquake and Tōjō painted it again with the same people.
The real ship Mikasa was a British-built pre-dreadnought battleship and Tōgō's flagship throughout the Russo-Japanese War, including Port Arthur, the Yellow Sea and Tsushima. She sank after a magazine explosion days after the war, was raised and repaired, and after 1922 was preserved as a museum ship at Yokosuka; she is the last surviving British-built battleship.
Sources Wikipedia (JA) · Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Drawing
HMS Monmouth Named ship
'Count Spee Sinking Monmouth' at the Battle of Coronel, 1 November 1914
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF1785)
Medium Watercolour with pen and ink
At Coronel, off the coast of Chile, Admiral von Spee's squadron met a weaker British force, and both Good Hope and Monmouth went down with all hands; only Glasgow and the auxiliary cruiser Otranto escaped. Monmouth, set on fire by Gneisenau, was still afloat in the dark when the light cruiser Nürnberg found her. She did not haul down her flag. Wyllie shows the last moment, Monmouth capsizing under Nürnberg's guns on the left, with one slip the museum points out: her forward turret, already blown overboard, still sits on the forecastle.
“Monmouth's forward turret had been blown over the side by the gunfire of the Gneisenau”
The real ship Monmouth (1901) was a British armoured cruiser. Set on fire by Gneisenau at Coronel on 1 November 1914, she was found in the dark by the light cruiser Nürnberg, which opened fire again, and she capsized with the loss of all hands.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
SMS Leipzig Named ship
The Last Man (Der letzte Mann), 1914
Artist Hans Bohrdt (1857 to 1945)
Location Lost (whereabouts unknown since 1916)
Medium Painting (known from reproductions)
Bohrdt's picture became one of the best-known German propaganda images of the First World War. It shows a sailor with the war ensign in his hand standing on the keel of the capsized light cruiser Leipzig at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914, while in the background the Scharnhorst, already burning, fights on. Bohrdt, whose greatest patron was Kaiser Wilhelm II, made hundreds of illustrations for books, magazines and postcards in these years. The painting itself has been considered lost since 1916 and survives through old postcards.
The real ship Leipzig, a Bremen-class light cruiser, was built by AG Weser in Bremen, launched in March 1905 and commissioned in 1906. She fought at Coronel and was chased down and sunk at the Falklands by HMS Glasgow and HMS Cornwall on 8 December 1914; only 18 of her crew survived.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
SMS Ariadne Named ship
The Light Cruiser SMS Ariadne in Action (Kleiner Kreuzer SMS Ariadne im Gefecht), 1914
Artist Willy Stöwer (1864 to 1931)
Source Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (DVM 10 Bild 23 61 47, photograph of the painting)
Medium Painting (known from photographic reproduction)
Stöwer was a board member of the German Navy League, and Kaiser Wilhelm II was an enthusiastic supporter who owned several of his works and took him on his voyages. Here he paints one of the first German losses of the war at sea. On 28 August 1914 Ariadne, an old light cruiser recalled from reserve to lead torpedo boats on the North Sea coast, sortied into the Heligoland Bight to reinforce the patrols and was surprised and sunk by British battlecruisers. Pictures like this one showed the public at home a war at sea they could not see.
The real ship Fifth of the ten Gazelle-class light cruisers, armed with ten 10.5 cm guns, Ariadne served with the fleet from 1902 to 1906 and then lay in reserve. Reactivated on 2 August 1914, she was surprised and sunk by British battlecruisers at the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
SMS Scharnhorst Named ship
Sinking of the 'Scharnhorst' at the Battle of the Falkland Islands, 8 December 1914, c. 1915
Artist Thomas Somerscales (1842 to 1927)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0655)
Medium Oil on canvas
Five weeks after his victory at Coronel, Vice Admiral von Spee made for Port Stanley and ran into Sturdee's battlecruisers, Invincible and Inflexible, sent to avenge that defeat. Somerscales, who ran a painting school in Valparaíso for nearly twenty years and kept his ties with Chile, shows the end: Scharnhorst on the left, listing to port and sinking by the stern, her bow out of the water and fire aft, while the smoke and gun flashes of the British ships continue in the distance. She capsized after four hours with no survivors, von Spee and his two sons among the dead.
“listing to port and sinking by the stern, her bow out of the water”
The real ship Scharnhorst (1906) was the flagship of von Spee's German Far Eastern squadron, victorious at Coronel on 1 November 1914. At the Falklands on 8 December 1914 she was engaged by Invincible and capsized with all hands; Gneisenau sank an hour later and only Dresden escaped.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Somerscales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
SMS Lützow, Derfflinger, Seydlitz, Moltke and Von der Tann Named ship
Admiral Hipper's Battlecruisers: Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916
Artist Claus Bergen (1885 to 1964)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0661)
Medium Oil on canvas
Jutland from the other side. Claus Bergen, official German war artist, paints the opening of the battle as Vice Admiral Hipper's five battlecruisers, Von der Tann, Moltke, Seydlitz, Derfflinger and Lützow, strung out along the horizon, exchange fire with British ships seen only as distant flashes, while columns of water rise from near misses. The open sea fills two fifths of a canvas nearly three and a half metres wide. The painting came to Greenwich from the Naval War Trophies Committee in the mid-1940s.
“columns of water spout up from near misses”
The real ship Hipper's five battlecruisers formed the scouting group of the German High Seas Fleet at Jutland and sank two British battlecruisers in the early stages without loss; his flagship Lützow was later lost, and Von der Tann's salvoes had destroyed HMS Indefatigable.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Print
A German U-boat and an armed British steam trawler Unnamed
A German U-boat Destroying an Armed British Steam Trawler (Deutsches U-Boot, einen bewaffneten englischen Fischdampfer vernichtend), 1916
Artist Willy Stöwer (1864 to 1931)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (LCCN 2002697970)
Medium Colour halftone photomechanical print
By 1916 the war at sea had reached the fishing grounds, where British steam trawlers now carried guns and German submarines surfaced to sink them. Stöwer, a board member of the German Navy League whose work Kaiser Wilhelm II admired and collected, painted this scene of a U-boat destroying an armed British trawler. It was reproduced in colour as a book illustration in Deutsche U-Boot-Taten in Bild und Wort, a volume celebrating the deeds of the U-boats. It is propaganda made for a public at home, and also a record of a new and grim kind of war.
The vessels As the title states, the victim is an armed British steam fishing trawler destroyed by a German U-boat; neither vessel is named.
Sources Library of Congress · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (DE)
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Drawing
HMS Indefatigable Named ship
HMS 'Indefatigable' Exploding at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916, 1916 to 1917
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAE3158)
Medium Grey wash
The first great loss of Jutland came early in the battlecruiser action. At 16.02 to 16.03 on 31 May 1916 the German battlecruiser Von der Tann hit Indefatigable with successive salvoes of 11-inch shells and she blew up; of her crew only two survived. Wyllie, once described as the most distinguished marine artist of his day, set the moment down in grey wash, an atmospheric drawing rather than a finished battle piece. The museum is honest that it is not yet known whether he worked from eyewitness accounts or from a photograph.
“whether this atmospheric drawing is based on eyewitness accounts or a photograph remains to be determined”
The real ship Indefatigable (1909) was a British battlecruiser at Jutland. Hit by successive salvoes from Von der Tann, she blew up with the loss of 1,017 officers and men; there were only two survivors.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Maenad Named ship
HMS 'Maenad' at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May to 1 June 1916, c. 1916 to 1920
Artist James Finlayson Feteridge (c. 1889 to 1960)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0666)
Medium Oil on thick fabric-backed paper (the back of a chart)
This is Jutland painted by a man who was there. James Feteridge was a quartermaster in the destroyer Maenad, and afterwards he painted her night attack on the German battleships in the early hours of 1 June 1916 on the back of part of a navigational chart. Her after gun fires as she turns away from the German line, a battleship silhouetted beyond. The museum calls it a striking and unusual example of amateur work; one of her officers remembered a torpedo taking effect with a most splendid explosion.
“one of our torpedoes take effect on one of the Germans, and a most splendid explosion resulted”
The real ship Maenad was an M-class destroyer completed in 1915 and scrapped in 1921. At Jutland, in the 12th Destroyer Flotilla, she attacked German battleships with torpedoes at about 02.00 on 1 June 1916.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Queen Elizabeth-class battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron Named ship
'Queen Elizabeth' Class Ships of the 5th Battle Squadron at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916, probably 1916 to 1939
Artist Arthur Douglas Wales-Smith (1888 to 1966)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0663)
Medium Oil on canvas
The four battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron, in line ahead and firing to starboard at the German battlecruisers on the distant horizon, while German shells that have overshot burst in the sea to the right. Wales-Smith was a naval officer, and the painting shows it: it was long catalogued as the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, until the casemate guns, mainmasts and bridge structures identified the ships as the Queen Elizabeth class, the only battleships at Jutland with all three. It is a sailor's picture of a squadron at full stretch.
The real ship The four Queen Elizabeth-class battleships of the 5th Battle Squadron followed the British battlecruisers at Jutland, coming into action against the German battlecruisers at 16.08 on 31 May 1916 and firing their last shots at 19.30.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Drawing
SMS Blücher Named ship
'The Last of Blücher', 1916
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF1765)
Medium Watercolour
At Dogger Bank on 24 January 1915 the gunnery began at nine in the morning, and at seven minutes past twelve the armoured cruiser Blücher, after many shell hits and a reported seven torpedoes, rolled over. Wyllie shows her capsizing to port, with the battlecruiser Tiger in the right background, and takes a painter's liberty by setting a British destroyer far closer than it could have been, for the sake of the composition. British destroyers picked up 189 of her men. The picture was reproduced in colour in Wyllie's Sea Fights of the Great War in 1918.
The real ship Blücher (1908) was a German armoured cruiser. At the Battle of Dogger Bank on 24 January 1915 she was hit by many shells and torpedoes and capsized at 12.07; 189 of her crew were rescued by British destroyers.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Vindictive Named ship
HMS 'Vindictive' at Zeebrugge, 23 April 1918
Artist Charles John de Lacy (1856 to 1929)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0669)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the night of 23 April 1918 more than 70 vessels and about 1,700 men attacked Zeebrugge, the Belgian port the Germans used for their U-boats. De Lacy, a Sunderland-born painter and illustrator for the Illustrated London News and the Graphic, shows the old cruiser Vindictive alongside the Mole from the seaward end, landing men while more go ashore from a second vessel, the glow beyond lit by bursting star shells. Militarily inconclusive, the raid was hailed in propaganda as a victory, and eight Victoria Crosses were awarded.
The real ship Vindictive was an old cruiser launched in 1897 and refitted with mortars, flame throwers and howitzers for the raid. She took heavy damage alongside the Zeebrugge Mole on 23 April 1918 but came away, and less than a month later was sunk as a blockship at Ostend.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Charles John de Lacy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Cardiff with SMS Seydlitz, Moltke, Hindenburg, Derfflinger and Von der Tann Named ship
HMS 'Cardiff' Leading the German High Seas Fleet to Surrender in the Firth of Forth, 21 November 1918, 1919
Artist Charles Dixon (1872 to 1934)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0670)
Medium Oil on canvas
After the Armistice the German High Seas Fleet sailed, mainly from Kiel, under Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter to meet the British Grand Fleet. Dixon paints the light cruiser Cardiff at the head of the line, leading the battlecruisers Seydlitz, Moltke, Hindenburg, Derfflinger and Von der Tann into the Firth of Forth on 21 November 1918, where Beatty ordered that the German flag be hauled down at sunset. It is the end of Jutland's story: the ships were interned at Scapa Flow, where von Reuter had them scuttled in June 1919.
The real ship Cardiff (1917) was a British light cruiser, flagship of the 6th Light Cruiser Squadron, chosen to lead the German fleet into the Forth. The surrendered ships were interned at Scapa Flow, and most sank when their own crews scuttled them on 21 June 1919.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Southampton Named ship
HMS 'Southampton' on the Morning of the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916, early to mid-20th century
Artist Oscar Parkes (1885 to 1958)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3871)
Medium Oil on canvas
Oscar Parkes was a naval surgeon who became an official naval artist, ran the naval photographic section of the new Imperial War Museum and edited Jane's Fighting Ships from 1918 to 1935. He painted ships the way an expert reads them: here Southampton, flagship of Commodore Goodenough's 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron, in a moderate sea on the morning of Jutland, with a crow's nest on her shortened foremast and her after guns trained to starboard. In the battle she torpedoed the German cruiser Frauenlob, which sank.
The real ship Southampton was a Town-class light cruiser and flagship of the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron under Commodore W. E. Goodenough at Jutland, where she torpedoed and sank the German light cruiser Frauenlob.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Admiral Scheer Named ship
The German Pocket Battleship 'Admiral Scheer' Bombarding the Spanish Coast, 1937
Artist Claus Bergen (1885 to 1964)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0671)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 31 May 1937, during the Spanish Civil War and in reprisal for an air attack on her sister ship Deutschland, the Admiral Scheer shelled the city of Almería, killing and wounding civilians. Claus Bergen shows her at the centre of the canvas firing in flashes and great clouds of black smoke towards the distant coast, white spray rising from shells around her. The painting was rushed, still wet, to the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich that year, and Hitler bought it for the Reich Chancellery; it has been suggested the Nazi leadership saw it as a riposte to Picasso's Guernica.
“firing in flashes and great clouds of black smoke towards the coastline”
The real ship Admiral Scheer was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser, usually called a pocket battleship, launched in 1933. She bombarded Almería on 31 May 1937 and in November 1940 attacked Convoy HX84, sinking its escort, the armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
The Dunkirk evacuation fleet: destroyers, paddle steamers and small craft Unnamed
Withdrawal from Dunkirk, June 1940
Artist Richard Eurich (1903 to 1992)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0672)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eurich was not at Dunkirk. He painted it in Southampton from notes, sketches made the summer before, eyewitness accounts and a few photographs, and chose a viewpoint as if from a low-flying aircraft. Below, soldiers queue along the beach under air attack, small boats heeled over or capsized under the weight of men carry them out to a paddle steamer and larger ships, and a vast pall of smoke from bombed oil tanks hangs over the town. In all, 366,162 men were brought home. The picture became the Navy's Christmas card for 1940.
“notes, sketches made the previous summer, on-the-spot accounts, and a few photographs”
The vessels Between 20 May and 4 June 1940 naval vessels, paddle steamers, fishing craft and many small boats evacuated 366,162 men of the British Expeditionary Force and Allied forces from Dunkirk harbour, its two moles and the beaches.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Jervis Bay Named ship
The 'Jervis Bay' Action, 5 November 1940, 1941
Artist Charles Pears (1873 to 1958)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2412)
Medium Oil on canvas
Jervis Bay was a former passenger liner turned armed merchant cruiser, the only protection of a 37-ship convoy, when the German Admiral Scheer attacked. Captain Fegen ordered the convoy to scatter and turned towards the enemy. His ship and several others were sunk, but 31 escaped, and Fegen's sacrifice was recognised with a posthumous Victoria Cross. Pears, a noted contributor of marine subjects to the illustrated press, painted the action within a year with the clarity the museum describes, easily understood by the public: a hopeless fight chosen deliberately.
“ordered the convoy to scatter and turned towards the enemy”
The real ship Jervis Bay was launched as a Commonwealth Line passenger steamer and converted to an armed merchant cruiser. Escorting convoy HX 84, she was sunk by the Admiral Scheer on 5 November 1940; 68 of her crew of 254 were picked up by the neutral Swedish ship Stureholm.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Bismarck and HMS Dorsetshire Named ship
The Sinking of the 'Bismarck', 27 May 1941, 1941 to 1945
Artist Charles Edward Turner (1883 to 1965)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0679)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned by Sir Bruce Ingram of the Illustrated London News, apparently as an oil copy of Turner's double-page illustration published on 7 June 1941, the picture shows the last minutes of the hunt. Bismarck wallows in the sea, listing to port, with a huge hole in her forecastle pouring flame and smoke, while the cruiser Dorsetshire stands in the background about to launch the torpedoes that finished her. Turner painted naval actions for the illustrated press with a closely observed, highly detailed finish: here the great ship is alone and beaten, and the cruiser waits.
“wallowing in the sea, in starboard-bow view, listing to port”
The real ship Bismarck sailed from Kiel on 18 May 1941 with Prinz Eugen, fought Hood and Prince of Wales, and was crippled by Ark Royal's aircraft. On 27 May Tovey's ships reduced her to a burning wreck, Dorsetshire was ordered to finish her with torpedoes, and she sank at 10.39 am; 110 survivors and the ship's cat were rescued.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau Named ship
Air Attack on the 'Scharnhorst' and 'Gneisenau', 11 to 12 February 1942, c. 1942 to 1944
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1625)
Medium Oil on canvas
In February 1942 the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, broke out of Brest and ran up the Channel to German ports. The British had intelligence of the plan and threw in heavy air attacks at great cost, yet the ships got through. The Times called it the most mortifying blow to British sea power since the seventeenth century. Wilkinson chose to paint that failure too, the aircraft going in against the German ships as they passed.
“Nothing more mortifying to the pride of our sea-power has happened since the seventeenth century.”
The real ship Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, both of 1936, were German capital ships based at occupied Brest. In Operation Cerberus, the Channel Dash of February 1942, they escaped with the cruiser Prinz Eugen to German ports. Scharnhorst was sunk in the Arctic on 26 December 1943.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Mogami and Mikuma Named ship
Attack on Japanese Cruisers Mogami and Mikuma from the Air, 1942
Artist Griffith Baily Coale (1890 to 1950)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C.
Medium Painting
The last act of Midway belonged to two cruisers. Mogami and Mikuma, sisters of a class built to the very limits of the Washington Naval Treaty and known to be unstable and top-heavy, were attacked by American aircraft on the final day of the battle. As the Navy's caption puts it, the Mogami was heavily damaged but escaped, while the Mikuma was sunk on 6 June. Coale, the painter who had persuaded Admiral Nimitz to send artists to sea, and who later wrote Victory at Midway, recorded the attack for the Navy.
The real ship Mikuma, second of the four Mogami-class cruisers, was laid down in 1931 and completed at Mitsubishi's Nagasaki yard in 1935. She fought at the Battle of Sunda Strait in February 1942 and was sunk at Midway on 6 June 1942; her sister Mogami survived the attack heavily damaged.
Sources Naval History and Heritage Command · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Griffith Baily Coale, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Campbeltown Named ship
HMS 'Campbeltown' at St Nazaire, 27 March 1942, c. 1942 to 1943
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1597)
Medium Oil on canvas
The raid on St Nazaire in March 1942 was aimed at a single target: the only dry dock on the Atlantic coast that could take the largest German warships. The old destroyer Campbeltown, loaded with explosives, was rammed into the dock, which stayed out of service until the end of the war. Wilkinson paints the night as a storm of searchlight beams, flak and columns of smoke, with the ship at the heart of it, a vessel sent on a voyage from which she was never meant to return.
“the only dry-dock on the Atlantic coast capable of servicing large German warships”
The real ship Campbeltown (1919) was an obsolete destroyer. Loaded with explosives, she was rammed into the dock at St Nazaire during the raid of March 1942, putting it out of use for the rest of the war.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū Named ship
Dive Bombing Japanese Carriers, 1942
Artist Griffith Baily Coale (1890 to 1950)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C.
Medium Painting
Coale was the painter who persuaded Admiral Nimitz to put artists aboard Navy ships, and so founded the Navy Combat Art Program; he later wrote a book, Victory at Midway. This picture shows the turning point of the Pacific war as American dive bombers fall on the Japanese carriers. The Navy's caption describes the Kaga crossing the foreground with the planes she had tried so hard to launch caught on her deck, while the Akagi smokes and the Soryu burns. Coale built the scene from the recollections of Ensign George Gay of Torpedo 8, who watched the battle from the water after being shot down.
The real ship Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū and Hiryū, the four Japanese fleet carriers at Midway, were all sunk at Midway in June 1942.
Sources Naval History and Heritage Command · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Griffith Baily Coale, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Bismarck Named ship
End of the 'Bismarck', 27 May 1941, c. 1942 to 1944
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1605)
Medium Oil on canvas
In his series The War at Sea Wilkinson set out to record the work of the Royal Navy, the Merchant Navy and Coastal Command, and few episodes were greater than the end of Bismarck. After sailing from Kiel with Prinz Eugen, fighting Hood and Prince of Wales in the Denmark Strait, and being crippled by torpedo aircraft from Ark Royal, she was brought to bay on 27 May 1941 by Admiral Tovey's ships and sank that morning. The canvas is one of the 54 paintings of the series that Wilkinson presented to the nation.
The real ship Bismarck left Kiel with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen on 18 May 1941. After fighting Hood and Prince of Wales, and with her rudders jammed by a torpedo from Ark Royal's Swordfish, she was engaged by Tovey's King George V and Rodney on 27 May and sank at 10.39 am; only 110 survivors, and the ship's cat, were saved.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
The US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor Unnamed
Japan Signs Her Own Death Warrant: Attack on Pearl Harbour, 7 December 1941, c. 1942
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1634)
Medium Oil on canvas
Wilkinson's title says what the attack meant to a British painter in 1942: the moment that brought the United States into the war. The museum describes a scene that gives a sense of the heavy casualties and damage, with dark billowing smoke covering most of the canvas against the clear turquoise water. At the centre a stricken battleship heels over, other ships burn around her, and small figures in the foreground are helpless witnesses to the event unfolding before them.
The vessels On 7 December 1941 Japanese aircraft attacked the US Pacific naval base at Pearl Harbor, an attack that brought the United States into the war.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
USS Hornet Named ship
Mitchells Taking Off from US Carrier 'Hornet', 18 April 1942, c. 1942 to 1944
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1603)
Medium Oil on canvas
Four months after Pearl Harbor, sixteen Army B-25 Mitchell bombers flew off the deck of the carrier Hornet at the limit of their range to bomb Japanese cities and fly on to friendly territory in China. The raid, conceived by Colonel James Doolittle, did little physical damage, but the museum judges its psychological impact critical. Wilkinson shows the improbable sight of heavy army bombers leaving a carrier deck far out at sea.
“16 Army B-25 Mitchells fly off at maximum range from a US Navy carrier and bomb various Japanese cities”
The real ship Hornet was a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier, commissioned a month before Pearl Harbor. In April 1942 she launched the Doolittle Raid, fought at Midway that June, and was sunk after being crippled at the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Warspite, HMS Valiant and HMS Barham with the Italian cruisers Zara and Fiume Named ship
Night Action off Cape Matapan, Greece, 28 March 1941, c. 1942 to 1944
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1601)
Medium Oil on canvas
Off Cape Matapan in March 1941 Admiral Cunningham's Mediterranean Fleet, with Australian ships in company, caught Admiral Iachino's Italian squadron and sank or badly damaged many of its ships. Wilkinson shows the night action with three British battleships nearest the viewer, Valiant, Warspite and Barham, and the Italian cruisers Zara and Fiume beyond. The museum points out that Barham, in the middle of the picture, can be told from her sisters because she alone had not been rebuilt in the 1930s, a detail Wilkinson set down faithfully.
The real ship Warspite (1913), Valiant (1914) and Barham (1914) were British battleships of the First World War generation. At Matapan in March 1941, under Admiral Cunningham, they took part in the night action against Italian ships including the cruisers Zara and Fiume.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
SS Ohio Named ship
The 'Ohio' in the Malta Convoy, 10 to 15 August 1942, c. 1942 to 1944
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1593)
Medium Oil on canvas
In August 1942 Malta was close to the end, above all for want of fuel, and Operation Pedestal was fought to get a convoy through. Many ships were lost on the way, but the tanker Ohio, the only one carrying the vital kerosene and diesel, reached the island in a near-sinking condition. She arrived on the Feast of the Assumption, which the Maltese took as a sign of divine help, and she is still remembered there as the saviour of the island. Wilkinson painted her in the convoy and again entering Malta, both in his War at Sea series.
“the only one carrying vital kerosene and diesel oil”
The real ship Ohio was an oil tanker built for The Texas Company by Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. at Chester, Pennsylvania, and launched in April 1940. Requisitioned by Britain for the Pedestal convoy of August 1942, she reached Malta so badly damaged that she never sailed again.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMNZS Achilles, HMS Ajax and Admiral Graf Spee Named ship
The Pursuit of the 'Graf Spee' by HMS 'Ajax' and 'Achilles' at the Battle of the River Plate, 13 December 1939, c. 1942
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1617)
Medium Oil on canvas
Wilkinson shows the pursuit at about half past seven in the morning of 13 December 1939. The New Zealand cruiser Achilles is nearest to us, and Ajax, Commodore Harwood's flagship, on the left, has already had her mainmast shot away, while the German Admiral Graf Spee shows in the distance beyond Achilles's bow. In 1940 Wilkinson exhibited a River Plate painting at the Royal Academy made from a description by Captain C. H. L. Woodhouse of Ajax; this may be the same canvas. It belongs to his series The War at Sea, 54 paintings he presented to the nation through the War Artists Advisory Committee.
“Painted from a description of the battle by Captain C.H.L. Woodhouse R.N., H.M.S. Ajax.”
The real ship Ajax and Achilles were Leander-class light cruisers with six-inch guns; Achilles was on loan to the New Zealand Division. With the heavy cruiser Exeter, under Commodore Henry Harwood, they engaged the Admiral Graf Spee off the River Plate on 13 December 1939. The German ship put into Montevideo and was scuttled on Captain Langsdorff's order on 17 December.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
San Demetrio Named ship
The 'San Demetrio' at the 'Jervis Bay' Action, 5 November 1940, c. 1942
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1615)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Jervis Bay action had a sequel that became one of the legends of the Merchant Navy. The tanker San Demetrio, hit and set on fire by the German raider Admiral Scheer, was abandoned by her crew. Some 24 hours later the men in one of her lifeboats sighted a burning ship and found it was their own, still afloat. They climbed back aboard, put out the fire and sailed her across the Atlantic to Ireland without charts, saving ship and cargo. Wilkinson paints the moment of choice, the boat's crew about to return to their ship.
The real ship San Demetrio (1938) was a motor tanker in Convoy HX84 when the Admiral Scheer attacked it on 5 November 1940. Abandoned while burning, she was reboarded by sixteen of her crew, who put out the fire and brought her and her aviation fuel cargo across the Atlantic to Ireland and on to the Clyde.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Warspite Named ship
The Second Battle of Narvik, 13 April 1940, c. 1942 to 1944
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1600)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 13 April 1940 a force under Vice Admiral Whitworth, the battleship Warspite with six destroyers, entered Ofotfjord, where German destroyers were known to be sheltering, and put seven of them out of action. Wilkinson places Warspite to the right with what the museum calls her brood of destroyers around her, a battleship brought into the narrow waters of a Norwegian fjord. The painting belongs to the War at Sea series he gave to the nation.
“a naval force under the command of Vice-Admiral Whitworth, consisting of HMS ‘Warspite’ and six destroyers, entered Ofot Fjord”
The real ship Warspite was a British battleship launched in 1913. On 13 April 1940 she led the force of destroyers that attacked the German destroyers at Narvik in the Second Battle of Narvik.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Onslow Named ship
Captain Sherbrook's Action, 31 December 1942, 1943
Artist Charles Pears (1873 to 1958)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0682)
Medium Oil on canvas
On New Year's Eve 1942, inside the Arctic Circle, the German cruiser Hipper and the pocket battleship Lützow attacked a convoy bound for Russia. Captain Robert Sherbrooke in the destroyer Onslow commanded the escort; his ship was badly hit and he was wounded, but the escorts held the enemy off through a four-hour engagement until the cruisers Sheffield and Jamaica came up and the Germans broke off. He received the Victoria Cross. Pears lights the scene only by gun flashes: orange bursts against sombre greys, smoke and snow, with Onslow alone at the centre.
“The only illumination comes from the firing of the guns”
The real ship Onslow was the Royal Navy destroyer leading the escort of Convoy JW 51B to Russia at the Battle of the Barents Sea on 31 December 1942. She was badly damaged in the action.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Drawing
USS Emmons (DD-457) Named ship
The Battle for Fox Green Beach, 1944
Artist Dwight Shepler (1905 to 1974)
Where to see it U.S. Navy Art Collection, Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington, D.C. (KN-570)
Medium Watercolour
Dwight Shepler was a Navy combat artist who took part in the 1944 Normandy invasion as an artist, working afterwards from his sketches and film, and this watercolour is D-Day at Omaha Beach seen from the sea. The destroyer Emmons bombards in support of the landings at Fox Green, one of the destroyers that fought shore batteries at less than a thousand yards that morning. Shepler painted more than 300 pictures over his career, and here a single grey warship stands for the fleet's support of the men ashore.
The real ship USS Emmons was a Gleaves-class destroyer. On 6 June 1944 she guarded the minesweepers, joined the bombardment before the Omaha landings and stayed off the beachhead for three days; she later supported the invasion of southern France, was converted to a destroyer minesweeper, and was lost after being struck by five kamikazes off Okinawa on 6 April 1945.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Tirpitz Named ship
Midget Submarine Attack on the 'Tirpitz', 22 September 1943, 1944
Artist Richard Eurich (1903 to 1992)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0684)
Medium Oil on mahogany panel
Eurich, official war artist to the Admiralty, never saw action himself; he worked from confidential intelligence and interviews with men who had taken part. His long panorama gives most of its space to the snowy Norwegian mountains, lit with an uncanny calm, while the ships sit small in the fjord below, one of them with fire and smoke rising from her. Then the view drops beneath the surface, into dark water where mines hang like jellyfish, presumably the viewpoint of a submarine. The attack is felt rather than shown.
“presumably the viewpoint of a submarine”
The real ship Tirpitz (1939) was one of the two largest German battleships. While stationed in Norway in September 1943 she was damaged by British midget submarines and put out of action for months.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Allied landing craft crossing the Channel Unnamed
The Road to Normandy, June 1944
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1590)
Medium Oil on canvas
Wilkinson, then in his sixties, was aboard the destroyer HMS Jervis on D-Day and for some days afterwards, sketching as the invasion went in. From those sketches came eight paintings on the Navy's part in the invasion, and this one, landing craft crossing the Channel, was chosen as the cover of the catalogue when the War at Sea series was shown at the National Gallery in 1944. It closes the group: the long road over the water that every soldier had to travel before the beaches.
The vessels Landing craft of many types carried troops, vehicles and stores across the Channel for the Normandy landings of June 1944.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Rodney Named ship
'Rodney' Steaming through the Anchorage, 6 June 1944
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1594)
Medium Oil on canvas
Among the sketches Wilkinson made from the destroyer HMS Jervis off Normandy was the battleship Rodney moving through the crowded invasion anchorage. Her 16-inch guns gave naval gunfire support to the landings and to the fighting near Caen that followed, and Wilkinson painted her again firing on inshore targets with Warspite. This picture is the fifth of the eight works on the Navy's part in the invasion within his War at Sea series.
The real ship Rodney was one of two Nelson-class battleships, entering service in 1928 with 16-inch guns. She played a major role in the sinking of Bismarck in 1941 and gave naval gunfire support during the Normandy landings of June 1944; she was scrapped in 1948.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Scharnhorst Named ship
Sinking of the Scharnhorst, 26 December 1943, 1944
Artist Charles Pears (1873 to 1958)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0685)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pears places us at about 6.49 in the evening of Boxing Day 1943, in the Arctic night. Scharnhorst, hunted down by the battleship Duke of York with cruisers and destroyers, is being hit: three shell bursts show on her and a torpedo from the destroyer Scorpion explodes at her bow. The scene is lit by eight star shells, and the museum notes a stillness, as if the whole action had been frozen in time. It was painted for the War Artists' Advisory Committee.
“Three shell bursts can be seen on her and a torpedo is exploding on her bow”
The real ship Scharnhorst was a German battleship launched in 1936 that took part in the Channel Dash of 1942. Sent out against an Arctic convoy, she was surrounded and sunk on 26 December 1943 by a force led by HMS Duke of York; only thirty-six of her crew were found alive.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
Tirpitz Named ship
The 'Tirpitz' Attacked by Barracudas, 3 April 1944, 1944 to 1945
Artist Charles Pears (1873 to 1958)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0687)
Medium Oil on canvas
Tirpitz lay in Altenfjord in Norway, a threat to the Arctic convoys. On 3 April 1944, in Operation Tungsten, 21 Barracuda bombers and 40 fighters flew off British carriers and took her completely by surprise. Pears, working from a photograph of the ship, shows the fjord closed in by snow-clad mountains, bombs falling on and around her and a great column of black and white smoke rising above her, with the patterned, graphic energy of the poster designer he had been. Wilkinson painted the same raid for his own series.
“bombs falling on and around her and a great column of black and white smoke rising above her”
The real ship Tirpitz (1939) was, with Bismarck, one of the two largest German battleships. Damaged by British midget submarines in September 1943, she was hit again by carrier aircraft in Operation Tungsten on 3 April 1944, and was finally sunk by Lancaster bombers.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Eagle and HMS Gloucester Named ship
HMS 'Eagle' and 'Gloucester' off Calabria, 9 July 1940, mid-20th century
Artist Rowland Langmaid (1897 to 1956)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0674)
Medium Oil on canvas
Off Calabria in July 1940 came the first major action between the British Mediterranean Fleet and the Italian navy. Langmaid, who served in the Royal Navy in both wars and was official Admiralty artist to the Mediterranean Fleet from 1941 to 1943, painted it from life: the carrier Eagle in the centre, the cruiser Gloucester on the right, and the Italian fleet in the distance amid heavy bombing. His palette is so restrained that the museum likens the effect to a photograph, a sailor's record rather than a romantic battle piece.
“the first major action between the British and Mediterranean Fleet and Italian navy”
The real ship Eagle (1918) was an aircraft carrier whose aircraft sank an Italian destroyer at Calabria; the cruiser Gloucester (1937) had been damaged by Italian bombers the day before. Both served with Cunningham's Mediterranean Fleet in the action of 9 July 1940.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
An Ottoman frigate set ablaze by a Greek fireship Unnamed
The Burning of a Turkish Frigate (Το κάψιμο της τουρκικής φρεγάτας), undated
Artist Konstantinos Volanakis (c. 1837 to 1907)
Where to see it Private collection, Athens
Medium Oil on canvas
The fireship attacks of the Greek War of Independence were the navy's founding legend, and Volanakis painted the burning of an Ottoman warship at least twice; another version, dated 1882, is in the Naval Museum at Piraeus. His way of telling it is his own: where Nikiphoros Lytras put the fireship crew in the foreground rowing hard to escape, Volanakis makes the burning ship itself the heart of the picture, wrapped in flame, with Turkish sailors in the water as small details and the Greek fire-raisers barely visible. The sea, ships and harbours were his lifelong inspiration.
The vessels During the Greek War of Independence Greek seamen used fireships against the larger Ottoman sailing warships. The frigate in the picture is not identified.
Sources Wikipedia (EL) · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Konstantinos Volanakis, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Battles 1815 to 1945 · Painting
HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales Named ship
The Sinking of HMS Hood, undated
Artist J. C. Schmitz-Westerholt
Source U.S. Army Center of Military History (courtesy of the U.S. Army Chief of Military History); reproduced as U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photograph NH 50741-KN
Medium Painting
The Battle of the Denmark Strait, painted by J. C. Schmitz-Westerholt, shows the moment the Royal Navy lost its most famous ship. On 24 May 1941 Hood and the new battleship Prince of Wales were sent to intercept the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen, and early in the action Hood was destroyed. For twenty years after her commissioning Hood had been the largest warship in the world, known as the Mighty Hood. The painter puts Prince of Wales in the foreground, while the Hood is lost behind her.
The real ship HMS Hood was the first of the planned four Admiral-class battlecruisers and the only one completed, commissioned in 1920 and known as 'the Mighty Hood'. She was sunk by Bismarck in the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941, with Prince of Wales in company.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Naval History and Heritage Command · Wikipedia
Image: J. C. Schmitz-Westerholt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
São Gabriel, São Rafael and Berrio Named ship
The Armada of Vasco da Gama, 1497 (Livro de Lisuarte de Abreu), c. 1565
Artist Anonymous Portuguese illuminator
Where to see it The Morgan Library and Museum, New York (MS M.525)
Medium Ink and watercolour on paper
The Livro de Lisuarte de Abreu, now in the Morgan Library, pictures the India armadas one after another, from Vasco da Gama's in 1497 to the fleet of 1563, the ships usually named with their captains. A note in the book says it belonged to Lisuarte de Abreu, who had it made; he sailed to India in 1558 aboard the nau Rainha. The series of fleets had been begun on the order of governor Jorge Cabral in 1550, and the drawings were made in the East. This page opens the sequence with the voyage that started it all, the first fleet to reach India round the Cape.
The real ship Gama's first fleet was led by the naus São Gabriel and São Rafael, built with the help of Bartolomeu Dias, together with the caravel Berrio, which brought the news of India back to Lisbon on 12 July 1499.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (PT) · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
Fourth Portuguese India Armada Named ship
The Armada of Vasco da Gama, 1502 (Livro de Lisuarte de Abreu), c. 1565
Artist Anonymous Portuguese illuminator
Where to see it The Morgan Library and Museum, New York (MS M.525)
Medium Ink and watercolour on paper
The Livro de Lisuarte de Abreu records each Portuguese fleet sent to India, and this page gives the whole of Vasco da Gama's second armada of 1502. It was a fleet of twenty ships sent to avenge the defeats of Cabral's armada at Calicut, and here its hulls are gathered on one sheet, ready for inspection. These books were made to honour captains and their ships long after the events, when the India run had become a yearly undertaking, and this page shows how large the enterprise had grown only five years after the first voyage.
The real ship The 4th India Armada of 1502 had 20 ships under Vasco da Gama; it attacked Calicut shipping, founded a crown factory at Cannanore and left a patrol under Vicente Sodré. Its largest ship was the Flor de la Mar, a 400-tonne carrack commanded by Estevão da Gama, and the flagship was the São Jerónimo.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (PT)
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
Fifth Portuguese India Armada Named ship
The Armada of Afonso de Albuquerque, 1503 (Livro das Armadas), c. 1568
Artist Anonymous Portuguese illuminator
Where to see it Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Lisbon (Livro das Armadas, also called Memória das Armadas)
Medium Drawing in a manuscript codex
The fifth armada carried Afonso de Albuquerque to India for the first time. Navigational mistakes scattered it on the outward voyage, and ships spent much time looking for each other, which gives the orderly little groups on this page, one for each of the three squadrons, a certain irony. One squadron, under António de Saldanha, missed the crossing to India altogether and spent the year on the East African coast, where its captains found Table Bay and the strategic island of Socotra.
The real ship Nine or ten ships in three squadrons under Afonso de Albuquerque, Francisco de Albuquerque and António de Saldanha sailed in 1503; the vanguard relieved Cochin and built Fort Sant'Iago, the first Portuguese fort in Asia.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (PT)
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
Seventh Portuguese India Armada Named ship
The Armada of Dom Francisco de Almeida, 1505 (Livro das Armadas), c. 1568
Artist Anonymous Portuguese illuminator
Where to see it Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Lisbon (Livro das Armadas, also called Memória das Armadas)
Medium Drawing in a manuscript codex
Here the pages fill up. Almeida's fleet was the largest Portuguese armada yet sent to India, carrying the first Viceroy of the Indies with orders to secure the Indian Ocean by building a chain of coastal fortresses at Sofala, Kilwa, Anjediva and Cannanore. The illuminator spreads the ships across a double page, great naus and lateen caravels together, so that the book itself seems to swell with the ambition of the enterprise.
The real ship The 7th Armada sailed in 1505 under Dom Francisco de Almeida, first Portuguese Viceroy of the Indies, with 21 ships (22 if the Bom Jesus is counted separately) carrying 1,500 armed men.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (PT)
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
Cabral's fleet of thirteen ships Named ship
The Armada of Pedro Álvares Cabral, 1500 (Livro das Armadas), c. 1568
Artist Anonymous Portuguese illuminator
Where to see it Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Lisbon (Livro das Armadas, also called Memória das Armadas)
Medium Drawing in a manuscript codex
This is perhaps the most moving page of the book. Twelve of Cabral's thirteen ships are drawn with their captains' names, and several are shown overturned or going down, their notes recording that they were lost in the storm. The fleet sighted Brazil on 22 April 1500; a month later, on 23 or 24 May, a storm in the South Atlantic sank four ships, three naus and a caravel commanded by Bartolomeu Dias, the first European to round the Cape of Good Hope, and 380 men were lost. Triumph and loss share one sheet.
The real ship Cabral left Lisbon on 9 March 1500 with thirteen ships, sighted Brazil on 22 April and resumed the voyage in early May; four ships were lost in a storm in the South Atlantic on 23 or 24 May before the rest continued towards India.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (PT)
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
The four ships of Vasco da Gama's first voyage Named ship
The Armada of Vasco da Gama, 1497 (Livro das Armadas), c. 1568
Artist Anonymous Portuguese illuminator
Where to see it Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Lisbon (Livro das Armadas, also called Memória das Armadas)
Medium Drawing in a manuscript codex
The Livro das Armadas, an anonymous codex recording the fleets that sailed from Portugal to India between 1497 and 1566, opens with the voyage that changed the world's trade. Each ship of Vasco da Gama's first voyage is drawn as a small portrait with her captain's name, and one of them is shown wrapped in flames. Only 55 of the 148 men who sailed came home, and the São Rafael was burnt because too few were left to handle her. The page reads like a family register of ships, remembering those that never returned.
The real ship Gama sailed from Lisbon in 1497 with the naus São Gabriel and São Rafael, the caravel Berrio and a store ship, and opened the sea route to India. Disease killed about half the crews; the São Rafael was burnt for lack of men to sail her, and only 55 of the 148 men of the armada survived the voyage.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (PT) · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
First squadron of the Fourth Portuguese India Armada, under Vasco da Gama Named ship
Vasco da Gama's Squadron of the Fourth India Armada, 1502 (Livro das Armadas), c. 1568
Artist Anonymous Portuguese illuminator
Where to see it Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Lisbon (Livro das Armadas, also called Memória das Armadas)
Medium Drawing in a manuscript codex
Gama's second voyage to India was a show of force, and this page gives the first squadron of the fourth armada, the one he led in person: rows of heavy naus and a lateen-rigged caravel, each labelled with its captain. The armada of twenty ships fought its way along the Malabar coast, its caravels and cargo naus sailing in line to break an Arab fleet off Calicut. The Livro gives every vessel the same careful little hull, so that a war fleet becomes an orderly register.
The real ship The 4th India Armada of 1502 comprised 20 ships under Vasco da Gama; it fought the forces of Calicut, left a factor and a palisade at Cannanore, and left a squadron behind to patrol the Indian coast when Gama sailed home in 1503.
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Voyages and exploration · Print
Victoria Named ship
Maris Pacifici (The Pacific Ocean), 1589
Artist Abraham Ortelius (1527 to 1598)
Source Printed map (1589)
Medium Printed map
Ortelius's map of 1589 was the first printed map dedicated to the Pacific, and among its features is a single ship: Magellan's Victoria, the only vessel of his fleet to complete the return voyage. Nearly seventy years after that voyage, the ship had become an emblem of the ocean itself. On a sheet that still shows an imagined southern continent, Terra Australis, she stands for the one thing that had been proved: that the Pacific could be crossed.
The real ship A carrack of 85-tonels built at Ondarroa in Biscay, Victoria sailed from Seville with Magellan's five ships in 1519 and, under Juan Sebastián de Elcano, returned to Sanlúcar on 6 September 1522, the only ship to complete the voyage round the world. She was lost with all hands on a voyage from the Antilles to Seville in about 1570.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Abraham Ortelius, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
Victoria Named ship
Ferdinand Magellan (Ferdinandes Magalanes Lusitanus), from Americae Retectio, c. 1592
Artist Johannes Stradanus (1523 to 1605)
Where to see it Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid
Medium Print
Stradanus, a Flemish artist who settled in Florence, designed the Americae Retectio series around 1592 to celebrate the discovery of the New World, and this plate is given to Magellan. It is an allegory rather than a record: the ship stands for the navigator's tenacity amid uncertainty and for what he left to the world, the passage past Tierra del Fuego to the other side of the globe. Seventy years after the voyage, the ship that first went round the world had already become an emblem.
The real ship Victoria, an 85-tonel carrack built at Ondarroa, sailed with Magellan's fleet of five and, under Juan Sebastián Elcano, was the only ship to complete the voyage, returning to Sanlúcar on 6 September 1522 after the first circumnavigation of the world.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Johannes Stradanus, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
Santa María, Niña and Pinta Named ship
Columbus Landing on Hispaniola, 6 December 1492, Greeted by the Inhabitants, c. 1594
Artist Theodor de Bry (1528 to 1598)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (Prints and Photographs, cph.3b07443)
Medium Copper engraving
De Bry, a Walloon engraver, goldsmith and publisher who settled in Frankfurt, never visited the Americas, yet his engraved books on the voyages shaped how Europe pictured them. In this plate, printed with a German text, Columbus in armour receives gifts of gold from the people of Hispaniola while his men raise a wooden cross on the shore. Behind them the ships lie close in, one with men crowding her rigging and deck. They tell the whole story at a glance: they came, and they will bring others.
The real ship Santa María, originally La Gallega, was a medium-sized nau or carrack built in Pontevedra, Galicia, the largest and the slowest of Columbus's three ships in 1492. On 24 December 1492, with a cabin boy at the helm, currents carried her onto a sandbank and she was lost.
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Voyages and exploration · Print
Golden Hind Named ship
Vera Totius Expeditionis Nauticae (The Broadside Map of Drake's and Cavendish's Circumnavigations), 1595
Artist Jodocus Hondius (1563 to 1612)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington
Medium Engraving
Jodocus Hondius, a Flemish engraver who had come to London in 1584 and engraved charts and globe gores for English patrons, made this double hemisphere map in 1595 to record both English circumnavigations, Drake's of 1577 to 1580 and Cavendish's of 1586 to 1588. In the margin, beside the Elizabethan arms, is a vignette of Drake's Golden Hind, and a corner picture shows Drake's landing at Nova Albion in present-day California. The ship is placed at the edge of the world she had sailed round, as the emblem of the whole achievement.
The real ship Golden Hind, originally named Pelican, was renamed by Drake on 20 August 1578 in honour of his patron Sir Christopher Hatton, whose crest was a golden hind. After carrying Drake round the world between 1577 and 1580 she was kept on public display at Deptford until around 1650.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Jodocus Hondius, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Speedwell Named ship
The Departure of Puritans from Delfshaven to Join the 'Speedwell' to the New World, 1620
Artist Cornelis Liefrinck II (1581 to 1662)
Where to see it With Colnaghi, London (art dealer)
Medium Oil on panel
Offered by the London dealer Colnaghi as a work of 1620, this panel by the Leiden-born painter Cornelis Liefrinck sets the Separatists' departure among the ships of Delfshaven. Dutch flags fly from a crowd of masts, a richly decorated ship lies close to the shore beside wooden sheds, and a column of travellers in dark clothes, some with bundles on their backs, walks towards the water. Like the Willaerts, its interest lies in its closeness to the event: the Pilgrim story before it became an American legend, seen as a Dutch harbour scene.
The real ship Speedwell carried the Leiden Separatists from Delfshaven to Southampton in 1620 to meet the Mayflower; she proved unseaworthy and, after two attempts at the crossing, was left behind in England.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Cornelis Liefrinck II, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Speedwell Named ship
The Departure of the Pilgrim Fathers from Delfshaven (Het vertrek van de Pilgrims uit Delfshaven), 1620
Artist Adam Willaerts (1577 to 1664)
Where to see it Rose Marie and Eijk de Mol van Otterloo Collection
Medium Painting
Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden suggests this may be a unique image, made at the time, of the Pilgrims boarding the Speedwell at Delfshaven. Willaerts, a marine painter who lived and worked in Utrecht, fills the shore with travellers under arms: the museum points to the men with muskets and helmets and a woman holding a pike, people ready to fight if they had to. Beyond them a ship with streaming pennants lies in the river while boats crowded with passengers pull out to her. If the identification is right, this is the Pilgrim voyage painted in the year it began.
The real ship Speedwell, a 60-ton pinnace, was built in 1577 as Swiftsure, fought against the Spanish and was renamed in 1605. The Leiden Separatists bought her and refitted her at Delfshaven in 1620, but she leaked so badly that after two attempts she was left behind and the Mayflower sailed alone.
Sources lakenhal.nl · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
Heemskerck and Zeehaen Named ship
A View of the Murderers' Bay (Moordenaersbaij), as you are at anchor here in 15 fathom, 1642
Artist Isaack Gilsemans (c. 1606 to 1646)
Where to see it Nationaal Archief, The Hague (Tasman's journal)
Medium Drawing
Gilsemans, the merchant of the Zeehaen, drew this scene on 18 December 1642 in the bay Tasman named for the men he lost there. His lettered key does the work of a witness: ‘A’ marks ‘our ships’, the Zeehaen on the left and the Heemskerck on the right; B the canoes that came around them; C the Zeehaen's boat, taken by the inhabitants while paddling to the flagship and left again after gunfire. It is the first European image of Māori, and the two small Dutch ships sit in it like visitors who do not yet understand where they are.
The real ship Heemskerck, a VOC small war yacht launched in 1638, sailed from Batavia on 14 August 1642 as Tasman's flagship with the Zeehaen. They were the first European ships to reach Tasmania and New Zealand, arriving off the South Island on 13 December 1642, and then went on to Tonga.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Isaack Gilsemans, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
Tongan sailing canoes Unnamed
The dress, boats and dwellings of the people of Tongatapu (from Tasman's journal), 1643
Artist Isaack Gilsemans (c. 1606 to 1646)
Medium Woodcut after a drawing in Tasman's journal
The companion sheet from Tasman's journal turns from the Dutch ships to the islanders themselves, recording the dress, the boats and the dwellings of the people of Tongatapu. For the voyage it is the other half of the encounter: the craft of an ocean people, noted with a merchant's eye by a man who had sailed from Batavia by way of Tasmania and New Zealand to meet them. Here the boats of Tonga, not the ships of the Dutch East India Company, are the subject.
The vessels The canoes of Tongatapu as Tasman's expedition saw them early in 1643; the expedition left Tonga on 1 February 1643.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Isaack Gilsemans, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
Heemskerck and Zeehaen Named ship
Tasman's ships at anchor off Tongatapu, with islanders bringing gifts (from Tasman's journal), 1643
Artist Isaack Gilsemans (c. 1606 to 1646)
Medium Woodcut after a drawing in Tasman's journal
Weeks after the bloodshed in New Zealand, Tasman's ships reached Tongatapu, and this picture from his journal has an entirely different mood. Its lettered key shows both Dutch ships in the bay at A, the islanders coming out with presents at B and E, their canoe at C, how they fish at D, and where the king lives at F. It reads like a merchant's careful record of a friendly landfall, the Dutch ships quiet at anchor while the islanders' own craft come and go around them.
The real ship Heemskerck, launched in 1638, and her consort Zeehaen sailed from Batavia on 14 August 1642 on the VOC voyage that reached Tasmania and New Zealand before turning north; they were the first Western ships to visit three of the islands now part of Tonga, and left Tonga on 1 February 1643.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Isaack Gilsemans, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
Batavia Named ship
The Batavia under Sail and Wrecked on the Abrolhos, Plate 1 from Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia, 1647
Artist Anonymous Dutch engraver
Source Published in Ongeluckige voyagie, van't schip Batavia (Amsterdam, 1647)
Medium Engraving
The Unlucky Voyage of the Ship Batavia, published in Amsterdam in 1647, told the story of the wreck and its aftermath, and its first plate sets out the disaster in three frames. Above, the new ship sails under full canvas; below left, she lies wrecked with her masts falling and boats pulling away towards low islands; beside it a ship rides at anchor as a boat approaches. Behind these orderly images lay one of the darkest episodes in maritime history, the massacre of about 125 survivors on the islands by the mutineers of Jeronimus Cornelisz.
The real ship Batavia, a new VOC ship and flagship of her fleet, sailed from Texel on her maiden voyage on 29 October 1628 and was wrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos off Western Australia on 4 June 1629. Many of her artefacts are at the Western Australian Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle, and a replica is moored at Lelystad.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Centurion and Nuestra Señora de Covadonga Named ship
The Capture of the 'Nuestra Señora de Cavadonga' by the 'Centurion', 20 June 1743, c. 1745
Artist Samuel Scott (c. 1702 to 1772)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0360, Caird Collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commodore Anson left England in 1740 with six ships, but by the time he reached Macao in November 1742 the Centurion was the only one left. After wintering there he set out in April 1743 to hunt the Manila galleon, and in June he caught the heavily laden Covadonga in Philippine waters. This is the moment the voyage paid for itself. Scott, who the museum notes was averse to travelling by sea and often drew his ships from models, gives the encounter the calm authority of a record painted for those who had made it.
The real ship Centurion, a 60-gun fourth-rate, was launched at Portsmouth Dockyard on 6 January 1732. She was Anson's flagship on his voyage of 1740 to 1744 and returned to Spithead on 15 June 1744, the only ship of the squadron to survive the entire voyage.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Adventure (seen from HMS Resolution) Named ship
A View of the Cape of Good Hope, Taken on the Spot, from on Board the 'Resolution', 1772
Artist William Hodges (1744 to 1797)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1778)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted from on board the Resolution, this is the view Hodges had as Cook's second voyage called at the Cape of Good Hope. The Adventure lies at anchor, Green Point marks the western edge of the bay, and the Dutch fort near which Cook went ashore is lit by the sun, echoing the square solidity of Table Mountain above. To the right a church tower leads the eye up the valley towards Lion's Head. It is a picture of the last familiar harbour before the voyage went on into unknown seas.
The real ship Adventure began as the North Sea collier Marquis of Rockingham, launched at Whitby in 1770 and bought by the Navy for Cook's second voyage, on which she sailed under Tobias Furneaux. She became the first ship to circumnavigate the globe from west to east, and was lost in May 1811.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Endeavour Named ship
HMS Endeavour Careened for Repairs in the Endeavour River, 1770, 1773
Artist After Sydney Parkinson (c. 1745 to 1771), engraved by William Byrne
Where to see it Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
Medium Engraving
In June 1770 the Endeavour ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef and was nearly lost; Cook had her guns thrown overboard to lighten her, and she was beached on the mainland for seven weeks while her hull was repaired. Sydney Parkinson, the voyage's natural history artist, drew her heeled over on the river shore, stores and tents laid out on the bank, while a boat is rowed across the water. Parkinson died at sea in January 1771 before the ship reached home, and his drawing reached the public in versions such as this engraving by William Byrne.
The real ship Endeavour was launched at Whitby in 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke, of the type known locally as the Whitby Cat; her flat-bottomed hull allowed her to be beached, and after striking the reef she lay on the Australian mainland for seven weeks for repairs.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: After Sydney Parkinson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure Named ship
The Resolution and Adventure, 4 Jan 1773, Taking in Ice for Water, Lat. 61 S
Artist William Hodges (1744 to 1797)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (SAFE/PXD 11)
Medium Ink and watercolour
This sheet records one of the strangest chores of Cook's second voyage: taking floating ice aboard to melt for fresh water at 61 degrees south, on 4 January 1773. The Resolution lies close by a small iceberg with her sails loosely handled and a boat alongside heaped with ice, while the Adventure stands off beyond under a heavy sky. It is a working record rather than a showpiece, and that is its power: it shows the ordinary seamanship that carried these ships deeper into the Antarctic than anyone had gone before. Thirteen days later the Resolution crossed the Antarctic Circle.
The real ship Resolution began as the North Sea collier Marquis of Granby, launched at Whitby in 1770 and bought by the Navy in 1771. With Adventure she made Cook's second voyage of 1772 to 1775, becoming on 17 January 1773 the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle. She was captured by a French squadron on 9 June 1782 and her final fate is uncertain.
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Voyages and exploration · Painting
Huahine canoes, seen from HMS Resolution Unnamed
View of Owharre [Fare] Harbour, Island of Huaheine [Huahine], 1773
Artist William Hodges (1744 to 1797)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1840)
Medium Oil on canvas
Cook anchored in Fare harbour on the west of Huahine on 2 September 1773 and stayed some five days, and the museum believes Hodges painted this small oil study on the spot during that time, presumably from the ship's cabin. A towering, craggy peak rises over the bay against a vast sky and a becalmed sea, and island canoes move on the still water. The sky is laid in so thinly that the grain of the canvas shows through. It is the voyage at its most immediate: not a composed exhibition piece, but the view from the Resolution on a quiet day.
“presumably from the ship's cabin”
The vessels The vessels in the picture are Huahine canoes. The painter's viewpoint was Cook's Resolution, which with Adventure made the second voyage of 1772 to 1775; Hodges had been appointed by the Admiralty to record the places they visited.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Resolution Named ship
The 'Resolution' in the Marquesas, 1774
Artist William Hodges (1744 to 1797)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF5791)
Medium Pen, ink and watercolour
Hodges, who trained under Richard Wilson, sailed with Cook on the second voyage of 1772 to 1775 with a brief to record the places visited, and the museum believes many of his finished drawings were almost certainly made on the voyage itself. This sheet shows the Resolution in the Marquesas in 1774. It carries the freshness of work done within sight of the subject: the ship not yet a legend, simply the vessel in which Hodges lived, worked and travelled.
The real ship Resolution began as the North Sea collier Marquis of Granby, launched at Whitby in 1770 and bought by the Royal Navy in 1771. She carried Cook on his second voyage of 1772 to 1775, which brought her to the Marquesas in 1774.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Tahitian war canoes Unnamed
Review of the War Galleys at Tahiti, 1776
Artist William Hodges (1744 to 1797)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2395)
Medium Oil on panel
Here the exploring ship gives way to the craft of the islanders, and the visitors become the spectators. Hodges, appointed by the Admiralty to record the places discovered on Cook's second voyage, painted the war galleys of Tahiti gathered for review. Most of his larger oils were painted in London on his return, and the museum holds 26 oils from the voyage, 24 of them painted for or acquired by the Admiralty. This one is a reminder that the Pacific had fleets of its own when the British arrived.
The vessels The war canoes of Tahiti, which the title calls war galleys, shown assembled for review during Cook's second voyage of 1772 to 1775.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Resolution Named ship
A View of Cape Stephens in Cook's Straits with Waterspout, 1776
Artist William Hodges (1744 to 1797)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1906)
Medium Oil on canvas
Off Cape Stephens the Resolution met waterspouts, and the astronomer William Wales recorded that one came within forty yards of the ship, one of the most terrifying incidents of the voyage. Hodges turned the moment into his most theatrical canvas: the ship with topsails clewed, lightning striking a Maori pa on the headland, seals clambering to safety and a Maori family watching from the rocks. The spouts show three stages in the forming of a single one. The small wooden ship holds the centre of a sky that seems ready to swallow her.
“He aimed to elevate landscape to the higher status of history painting”
The real ship Resolution began as the North Sea collier Marquis of Granby, launched at Whitby in 1770 and bought by the Navy in 1771. With Adventure she made Cook's second voyage of 1772 to 1775, becoming on 17 January 1773 the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle. She was captured by a French squadron on 9 June 1782 and her final fate is uncertain.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure Named ship
A View of Maitavie Bay, in the Island of Otaheite (Tahiti), 1776
Artist William Hodges (1744 to 1797)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1932, Ministry of Defence Art Collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
Hodges was appointed by the Admiralty to record the places visited on Cook's second voyage, and this is one of four large canvases of the same size that he painted for the Admiralty on his return. Resolution and Adventure, flying the red ensign and commissioning pendants, lie at anchor in Matavai Bay, while in the foreground a large canoe carries three men and a woman. On Point Venus stands the big tent Cook raised for his coopers, his guard and his sick. The ships are small against the shore, yet the museum notes the picture uses them to show the European presence in the landscape.
The real ship Resolution began as the North Sea collier Marquis of Granby, launched at Whitby in 1770 and bought by the Navy in 1771. With Adventure she made Cook's second voyage of 1772 to 1775, becoming on 17 January 1773 the first ship to cross the Antarctic Circle. She was captured by a French squadron on 9 June 1782 and her final fate is uncertain.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Tahitian canoe Unnamed
View of the Province of Oparree [Pare], Island of Otaheite, with part of the Island of Eimeo [Moorea], c. 1776
Artist William Hodges (1744 to 1797)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1936)
Medium Oil on panel
The museum calls this panoramic view of Tahiti's northern shore one of Hodges's most complex paintings, with an unusual composition and a particularly free style. The islanders' canoe is cut off by the bottom edge of the panel, a daring touch that the museum says adds to the sense of vastness, while the peaks of Moorea rise across the water. The museum thinks it was painted in London in 1776 to 1777 as an overdoor, and it carries the light and air of the Pacific that Cook's second voyage brought home to Europe.
“The placement of the islanders' canoe, cut off by the bottom edge, is very unusual and adds to the sense of vastness.”
The vessels The vessel is a Tahitian canoe, paddled by islanders, seen by the artist of Cook's second voyage of 1772 to 1775 in the Resolution and Adventure.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery Named ship
'Resolution' and 'Discovery' in Ship Cove, Nootka Sound, 1778
Artist John Webber (1751 to 1793)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAJ2959)
Medium Pen, ink and watercolour on paper
In April 1778 Cook brought his two ships into Nootka Sound, on what is now Vancouver Island, for a refit, and Webber, the voyage's official artist, drew them lying in Ship Cove with the tents and instruments of the shore observatory in the centre of the sheet. The museum calls it one of the very large roll drawings made by Hodges and Webber for the Admiralty, and the only one of this size in its collection. The ships sit quietly in a green, enclosed inlet, a rare moment of rest in a voyage that was pushing north towards the ice in search of a passage.
The real ship Resolution, a Whitby collier launched in 1770 and bought by the Navy in 1771, was Cook's ship on his second and third voyages; Discovery sailed with her on the third. Resolution was captured by a French squadron in 1782.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery Named ship
HMS 'Resolution' and 'Discovery' at Morea, c. 1780 to 1786
Artist John Cleveley the Younger (1747 to 1786)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1896)
Medium Oil on canvas
A companion to Cleveley's Hawaiian scene, this canvas refers to Cook's visit to the Society Islands and shows his ships at anchor in the calm water of the bay at Moorea, the island's mountains rising into a clouded sky, while islanders and Europeans exchange goods from boats and among the houses and palm trees. Cleveley, trained under Paul Sandby at Woolwich, never went to the Pacific; he worked from material brought home by his brother James, the Resolution's carpenter, for a public eager for the South Seas. The ships here are visitors in a busy harbour, and the picture catches a brief moment of exchange.
The real ship Resolution, a Whitby collier launched in 1770 and bought by the Navy in 1771, was Cook's ship on his second and third voyages, with Discovery as her consort on the third voyage of 1776 to 1780. Resolution was captured by a French squadron in 1782.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Cleveley the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery Named ship
HMS 'Resolution' and 'Discovery' off Hawaii (in Kealakekua Bay), c. 1780 to 1786
Artist John Cleveley the Younger (1747 to 1786)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1838)
Medium Oil on canvas
John Cleveley the Younger never sailed with Cook, but his brother James was carpenter of the Resolution on the third voyage, and through him John had access to material from it; he quickly made South Seas pictures for a ready market. Here the two ships lie at anchor in Kealakekua Bay, islanders in boats and among the houses and palm trees on the shore, mountains rising into a clouded sky. It is a peaceful picture of the bay where, in February 1779, Cook would be killed, and knowing that turns its calm into something close to foreboding.
The real ship Resolution, a Whitby collier launched in 1770 and bought by the Navy in 1771, was Cook's ship on his second and third voyages, with Discovery as her consort on the third voyage of 1776 to 1780. The ships anchored in Kealakekua Bay on 17 January 1779, where Cook was killed on 14 February.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Cleveley the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Racehorse and HMS Carcass Named ship
View of the 'Racehorse' and 'Carcass', 31 July 1773, late 18th century
Artist John Cleveley
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF7943)
Medium Watercolour
In 1773 Constantine Phipps sailed from Deptford on 4 June with two ships, the Racehorse and the Carcass, on a voyage towards the North Pole. They went beyond Svalbard to the Seven Islands, but the ice forced them back, and they returned on 17 September. This view records the two ships on 31 July. Aboard the Carcass, commanded by Skeffington Lutwidge, was a young midshipman named Horatio Nelson, which gives these two small, stubborn ships a place in history twice over.
The real ship Racehorse and Carcass sailed under Constantine Phipps on the 1773 voyage towards the North Pole, with Skeffington Lutwidge commanding Carcass; on the voyage Phipps became the first modern European to describe the polar bear and the ivory gull.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery (boats) Named ship
A Party from His Majesty's Ships Resolution and Discovery Shooting Sea Horses, Latitude 71 North, 1778, 1784
Artist John Webber (1751 to 1793)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC4212)
Medium Oil on canvas
In his search for a passage through the American continent, Cook reached latitude 71 north, the furthest north then reached by a European explorer, and there his crews shot walrus for food from the ice. Webber painted the scene large after his return and showed it at the Royal Academy in 1784, turning the hunt into an epic contest between man and nature. The museum points out that the contest was in fact one-sided, since the walrus were basically harmless. After the warm paradise of Cook's earlier voyages, the ice and grey light announced something new in British voyage painting.
The real ship Resolution, a Whitby collier launched in 1770 and bought by the Navy in 1771, was Cook's ship on his second and third voyages, with Discovery as her consort on the third voyage of 1776 to 1780. She was captured by a French squadron in 1782.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Print
Boats of HMS Resolution and HMS Discovery Named ship
The Death of Captain Cook, 1785
Artist After John Webber (1751 to 1793); figures engraved by Francesco Bartolozzi, landscape by William Byrne
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (17.3.887-64)
Medium Etching
Cook died at Kealakekua Bay on 14 February 1779, and Webber, the official artist of the voyage, made the image by which Europe remembered it. There were no eyewitness pictures of his death. Cook is shown about to be stabbed as he raises his arm to the marines in the boats to stop them firing on the crowd. Cambridge University Library notes that the picture served to present Cook as a hero sacrificing his life to prevent further bloodshed. The boats offshore are his only way home, and they stay out of reach.
“This image was not intended as an accurate representation of Cook's death”
The real ship Resolution and Discovery were the ships of Cook's third voyage; they had anchored at Kealakekua Bay on 17 January 1779.
Sources The Met · specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
Boussole and Astrolabe Named ship
The Frigates of La Pérouse at Anchor in Port des Français, 1786
Artist Gaspard Duché de Vancy (1756 to 1788)
Medium Drawing
Duché de Vancy was the expedition's official artist, and this is the voyage seen from inside it: the Astrolabe and the Boussole at anchor in July 1786 in the glacier-ringed fjord the French named Port des Français, now Lituya Bay in Alaska. The drawing was made during the anchorage itself. Before the ships left, two of their boats would be lost in the currents of the fjord with 21 men. Part of the artist's drawings survived only because La Pérouse sent papers home from Kamchatka in 1787; Duché de Vancy himself died with the expedition in 1788.
The real ship Boussole and Astrolabe were 500-tonneau storeships reclassed as frigates for the voyage; with 220 men under La Pérouse and Fleuriot de Langle they left Brest on 1 August 1785 and were wrecked at Vanikoro in 1788, where Peter Dillon found their remains in 1826 to 1827.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Image: Gaspard Duché de Vancy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Sirius and HMS Supply Named ship
A View of Botany Bay, 1789
Artist Robert Cleveley (1747 to 1809)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAD2115)
Medium Etching with watercolour
The First Fleet's eleven ships carried more than 1,500 people, including 548 male and 188 female convicts, to found the first British prison colony in Australia, and 48 died on the way. Cleveley's print shows the flagship Sirius entering Botany Bay to join Arthur Phillip, who had arrived with an advance party in the Supply. It is a voyage picture of a different kind: not discovery but arrival, the moment a long passage ends and a new and painful history begins.
The real ship Converted from the merchant ship Berwick, probably built at Rotherhithe in 1780, Sirius was the 10-gun flagship of the eleven-vessel First Fleet and arrived in Botany Bay on 20 January 1788, two days after Supply. She was wrecked on a reef at Norfolk Island on 19 March 1790 while landing supplies.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Robert Cleveley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Earl of Pembroke (later HMS Endeavour) Named ship
The Bark, Earl of Pembroke, later Endeavour, Leaving Whitby Harbour in 1768, c. 1790
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Library of Australia, Canberra
Medium Oil on canvas
Before she became the best-known ship in Australian history, Endeavour was a Whitby coal carrier. Luny, an English marine painter, shows her as the Earl of Pembroke leaving the harbour where she was built, with nothing yet to tell of Tahiti, New Zealand or the east coast of Australia. That is what makes the picture moving: a portrait of an ordinary merchant ship on the eve of an extraordinary life, painted some twenty years later, when her name was already famous. It was shown in the National Library of Australia's exhibition Cook and the Pacific.
The real ship Built by Thomas Fishburn at Whitby and launched in June 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke, she was bought by the Navy in 1768 and sailed as HMS Endeavour on Cook's first voyage of 1768 to 1771. Sold in 1775 and later renamed Lord Sandwich, she was scuttled in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, in 1778.
Sources flickr.com · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Sirius Named ship
The Melancholy Loss of H.M.S. Sirius off Norfolk Island, March 19th 1790
Artist George Raper (1769 to 1796)
Where to see it National Library of Australia, Canberra
Medium Watercolour
Raper was there when it happened, and the drawing is signed as taken from the flagstaff on the beach. Sent to Norfolk Island with supplies, the Sirius was wrecked on the reef while landing stores on 19 March 1790, and he shows her caught in the surf, her masts going, with a great Union flag flying from the shore where the settlement watched. The loss left the young colony with a single naval vessel. Raper and his shipmates later faced a court martial in England for the loss of the ship and were honourably acquitted.
The real ship Sirius was converted from the merchantman Berwick, likely built in 1780 by Christopher Watson and Co. of Rotherhithe and bought and rebuilt by the Royal Navy in 1781. Renamed in 1786, she was the 10-gun flagship of the First Fleet and was wrecked on a reef at Norfolk Island on 19 March 1790 while landing supplies.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Bounty and her launch Named ship
The Mutineers Turning Lieut Bligh and Part of the Officers and Crew Adrift from His Majesty's Ship the Bounty, 1790
Artist Robert Dodd (1748 to 1815), engraved by B. B. Evans
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH9205)
Medium Hand-coloured aquatint
Published on 2 October 1790, Dodd's print fixed the mutiny in the public mind. Bligh and eighteen followers are cast adrift from the Bounty in the ship's launch, without charts, with very limited instruments and meagre rations, and cutlasses but no guns. What the viewer of 1790 already knew gave the scene its charge: the overloaded launch reached Coupang on Timor on 14 June 1789, after 41 days and more than 3,600 nautical miles. One man was killed by islanders at Tofoa; all the others survived.
“it remains the greatest open-boat survival voyage ever recorded”
The real ship Bounty was a small West Indiaman of 250 tons, formerly named Bethia, bought by the Admiralty for the voyage to carry breadfruit from Tahiti to the Caribbean. The mutiny broke out near Tonga on 28 April 1789, and the mutineers burned her at Pitcairn Island on 23 January 1790.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · portrait.gov.au · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Sirius Named ship
H.M.S. Sirius Weathering Tasman's Head, 1791
Artist George Raper (1769 to 1796)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (Dixson Galleries)
Medium Wash drawing
George Raper joined the Sirius as an able seaman and sailed with the First Fleet, and he is remembered today for his paintings of the voyage. Here he draws his own ship in a storm off Tasman's Head, lightning splitting the sky and seas breaking white on the cliff beside her. The Sirius had met a damaging gale off the south coast of Van Diemen's Land on her way back from the Cape with supplies for the colony, and was under repair in Sydney from June to November 1789. Raper dated this drawing 1791.
The real ship Sirius was converted from the merchantman Berwick, likely built in 1780 by Christopher Watson and Co. of Rotherhithe and bought and rebuilt by the Royal Navy in 1781. Renamed in 1786, she was the 10-gun flagship of the First Fleet and was wrecked on a reef at Norfolk Island on 19 March 1790 while landing supplies.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMAT Supply Named ship
His Majesty's Brig Supply, 1790, off Lord Howe Island, c. 1792
Artist George Raper (1769 to 1796)
Medium Watercolour
After the Sirius was lost in 1790, the little Supply became the colony's only link with the outside world. Raper, who had sailed with her in the First Fleet as a seaman of the Sirius, draws her as a shipmate would: a neat two-masted brig alone on a calm sea, sails set and pennant flying, with the rocky outline of Lord Howe Island low on the horizon behind her. The inscription gives her name and the year 1790. For those in Sydney and on Norfolk Island, her sails meant food, letters and news.
The real ship Supply was an 8-gun armed tender launched in 1759 as a yard craft for ferrying naval stores. She sailed with the First Fleet, made ten trips between Port Jackson and Norfolk Island, and after the loss of Sirius was the colony's only link with the outside world; the Admiralty sold her at auction in July 1792.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Endeavour Named ship
HMS Endeavour off the Coast of New Holland, c. 1794
Artist Samuel Atkins
Where to see it National Library of Australia, Canberra (nla.pic-an5921609)
Medium Painting
Samuel Atkins painted Endeavour some twenty years after her voyage, and an inscription on the back ties the picture to her grounding on the Great Barrier Reef in June 1770, the moment Cook's whole enterprise nearly ended. The ship is shown under a full spread of sail on a quiet sea, with two of her boats pulling ahead of her. After striking the reef she had to be lightened of her guns and beached for seven weeks of repairs. Here she is the sturdy Whitby collier doing work no warship had been asked to do.
The real ship Launched at Whitby in June 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke, she was bought by the Navy in 1768 and commissioned as HMS Endeavour for Cook's first voyage. Sold in 1775 and later renamed Lord Sandwich, she was scuttled in Narragansett Bay in 1778.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Print
Boats of Boussole and Astrolabe Unnamed
The Wreck of the Two Boats at Port des Français (Naufrage des deux chaloupes, au Port des Français), plate from the Atlas du Voyage de La Pérouse, 1797
Artist Nicolas-Marie Ozanne (1728 to 1811), engraved by Dequevauviller
Where to see it David Rumsey Map Collection (Atlas du Voyage de La Pérouse, Paris, 1797)
Medium Engraving
When the expedition's surviving papers reached Paris, the Republic published the voyage in 1797 with an atlas of plates, and Nicolas Ozanne, naval engineer and marine artist, drew this one of its first tragedy. Two boats are lost in the breaking current at the mouth of the Alaskan fjord the French had named Port des Français. Twenty-one men died there in July 1786, and before sailing on the expedition raised a monument to them on an island in the bay, named the Île du Cénotaphe, with an inscription buried in a bottle.
The vessels The boats belonged to Boussole and Astrolabe, the two ships of La Pérouse's expedition of 1785 to 1788; Joseph de Raxi de Flassan commanded the Astrolabe's boat.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Image: Nicolas-Marie Ozanne, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
The First Fleet (HMS Sirius, HMS Supply and transports) Named ship
First Fleet Entering Port Jackson, January 27, 1788, from William Bradley's journal 'A Voyage to New South Wales', c. 1802
Artist William Bradley (1758 to 1833)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (Safe 1/14)
Medium Wash drawing
William Bradley sailed with the First Fleet as a naval officer and a keen note-taker and sketcher, and his journal runs from the fleet's organisation at Deptford in 1786 through the voyage to Australia. In this pale wash drawing the ships come in between the sandstone headlands of Port Jackson on 27 January 1788, their sails small against a wide harbour. There is no ceremony in it, only a sailor's record of the fleet reaching the place that would become Sydney.
The real ship The First Fleet of eleven ships, led by HMS Sirius, sailed from England in 1787 with convicts, marines and seamen, reached Botany Bay in January 1788 and moved to Port Jackson to found the settlement.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: William Bradley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Mayflower and her shallop Named ship
Landing of the Pilgrims, c. 1803 to 1807
Artist Michele Felice Cornè (1752 to 1845)
Where to see it The White House, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
Cornè, born on Elba, came to Salem in 1800 aboard the Mount Vernon under Elias Hasket Derby Jr. and painted ships and harbours for New England merchants. His landing was inspired by Sam Hill's engraving on the invitation to the first meeting of the Sons of the Pilgrims, a Boston society founded in 1800. The leader wears a hat of the Napoleonic era and redcoats sit in the boat, while the ship waits offshore and Clark's Island lies in the distance. Plymouth Rock is in the foreground. It is history told by a painter of ships, and it now belongs to the White House.
“The clouds are rendered in strong, almost abstract shapes; the snow covers the shore like frosting on a cake”
The real ship Mayflower lay in Plymouth harbour through the winter of 1620 to 1621 and sailed for England on 15 April 1621.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Michele Felice Cornè, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Boats of Boussole and Astrolabe Unnamed
The Wreck of La Pérouse's Boats in 1786 (Naufrage des chaloupes de La Pérouse en 1786), 1806
Artist Louis-Philippe Crépin (1772 to 1851)
Where to see it Private collection, Château de Jeurre
Medium Painting
Twenty years after the event, this painting was made for the marquis de La Borde, whose two sons were lost when the boats went down at Port des Français. Louis-Philippe Crépin, a pupil of Joseph Vernet who wrote that he had served aboard warships as a seaman from 1793, was later one of the first two artists named official painters of the French Navy. Here he gives a father's private loss the form of a marine painting, the boats caught in the currents of the Alaskan fjord. It remains in a private collection at the Château de Jeurre.
The vessels The boats came from La Pérouse's frigates Boussole and Astrolabe; two boats carrying 21 men were lost in the violent currents of the fjord, now Lituya Bay in Alaska, in July 1786.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Louis-Philippe Crépin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Isabella and HMS Alexander Named ship
First Communication with the Natives of Prince Regent's Bay, 1819
Artist After John Sackhouse
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAG7970)
Medium Aquatint
This print records the Royal Navy's first encounter with Inuit in the Arctic, and its inscription says it was drawn by John Sackhouse and presented to Captain Ross on 10 August 1818. It appeared as an illustration in Ross's published account of the voyage of the Isabella and Alexander. The two ships lie at the edge of the ice while officers in full uniform meet the Inuit and their dog sledges on the floe: the ships are the reason for the meeting, the link between two worlds meeting on the ice.
The real ship Isabella, under John Ross, and Alexander, under William Edward Parry, were hired vessels sent by the Admiralty in 1818 on Ross's Arctic expedition, which left London in April of that year.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: After John Sackhouse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Fury and HMS Hecla Named ship
His Majesty's Discovery Ships Fury and Hecla, 1823
Artist Arthur Parsey; printed by Charles Joseph Hullmandel
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH9224)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Fury on the left and Hecla on the right: the two bomb vessels William Edward Parry took into the Arctic in search of a North-West Passage. On the voyage of 1821 to 1823 the frozen strait between Foxe Basin and the Gulf of Boothia was named after them, Fury and Hecla Strait. The museum links this print to their voyage of 1824 and 1825, and there is poignancy in the matched pair, since on that voyage Fury was so badly damaged at Prince Regent Inlet that she had to be abandoned.
The real ship Hecla, a Hecla-class bomb vessel launched in 1815, made Arctic voyages with Fury under Parry and George Lyon; Fury was abandoned at Prince Regent Inlet in 1825. Hecla was sold in 1831, became a Greenland whaler in 1834 and was wrecked in 1840.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Beagle Named ship
The 'Beagle' in Beagle Channel, 1835 to 1836
Artist Conrad Martens (1801 to 1878)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF6232)
Medium Watercolour with graphite
Another of Martens's fifteen watercolours of FitzRoy's voyage, this one shows the Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, sailing through the channel that bears her name on 3 March 1834. Behind the ship rise the mountains known as the Dogs Jaws, some 3,900 feet high. The little brig is dwarfed by them, and that sense of scale is exactly what the voyage recorded at the bottom of the world: a single surveying ship patiently measuring a landscape far larger than herself.
The real ship Beagle was launched at Woolwich Dockyard on 11 May 1820 as a 10-gun brig-sloop. She surveyed Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in 1826 to 1830 and made her second voyage of 1831 to 1836 round the world with Charles Darwin aboard; recent research indicates she was sold to shipbreakers in 1870.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Beagle Named ship
Murray Narrow, Beagle Channel, 1835 to 1836
Artist Conrad Martens (1801 to 1878)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF6238)
Medium Watercolour with graphite, heightened with white
Martens joined the Beagle as artist at Montevideo late in 1833, while Darwin was aboard, and this is one of fifteen watercolours he made to illustrate FitzRoy's Narrative of the voyage, worked up from a drawing of 5 March 1834. The Beagle sails through Murray Narrow, part of the Beagle Channel in Tierra del Fuego, with small boats on either side, cliffs closing in and mountains beyond. When Thomas Landseer engraved it for the book he added Fuegians fishing from canoes; the watercolour keeps the emptier, colder view of a small ship alone in a vast channel.
The real ship Beagle was launched at Woolwich Dockyard on 11 May 1820 as a 10-gun brig-sloop. She surveyed Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in 1826 to 1830 and made her second voyage of 1831 to 1836 round the world with Charles Darwin aboard; recent research indicates she was sold to shipbreakers in 1870.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Print
Astrolabe and Zélée Named ship
The Corvettes Leaving the Pack Ice, 9 February 1838 (Les corvettes sortant de la banquise le 9 février 1838), from the Atlas pittoresque of Dumont d'Urville's Voyage au Pôle Sud, c. 1838 to 1846
Artist After Louis Le Breton (1818 to 1866), lithographed by Auguste Mayer and Sabatier, published by Gide
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH0880)
Medium Lithograph
Louis Le Breton had studied medicine and sailed on Dumont d'Urville's second voyage in the Astrolabe; when the expedition's official illustrator died, he took his place. Here the Astrolabe, in the foreground, readies to join the Zélée in the distance as the two corvettes work out of the Antarctic pack on 9 February 1838. The expedition had been asked to equal Weddell's farthest south, but by the end of that February most of the crews showed signs of scurvy, and Dumont turned north to Chile. Two years later the corvettes came south again.
The real ship The Astrolabe began as the Coquille, a converted horse transport launched at Toulon in 1811, in which Duperrey circumnavigated the world in 1822 to 1825. Renamed in honour of one of La Pérouse's ships, she made two great voyages under Dumont d'Urville, the second with the Zélée from Toulon on 7 September 1837 to 6 November 1840.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: After Louis Le Breton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
Tory and Cuba Named ship
Meeting of the N.Z. Company's Ships Tory and Cuba in Cook's Straits, 1840
Artist Charles Heaphy (1820 to 1881)
Where to see it National Library of New Zealand, Wellington (A-145-010)
Medium Drawing
Heaphy joined the New Zealand Company as a draughtsman in May 1839 and sailed with William Wakefield in the Tory on an expedition to buy land for settlement; his task was a visual record of the Company's work, used to advertise the country to English migrants. Here the Tory meets the Cuba in Cook Strait in 1840, two ships under sail with a small boat pulling between them. It is a picture of prelude, the moment before a colony, drawn by a young man at the start of a long New Zealand life.
The real ship Tory, the first of the New Zealand Company's surveying ships, carried the Company's advance expedition under William Wakefield and arrived in late 1839 at what became Wellington.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikidata
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Beagle Named ship
HMS 'Beagle' off Fort Macquarie, Sydney Harbour, 1841
Artist Owen Stanley (1811 to 1850)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAD8969)
Medium Watercolour with ink
Owen Stanley, captain of HMS Britomart and an artist of some ability, drew the Beagle at Sydney in April 1841, after both ships had returned from a survey of the Arafura Sea towards Timor. The back of the sheet is inscribed with the date, 10 April 1841. A former curator of the museum called it the best-known watercolour of the survey ship, though it shows her on her third and final voyage, when John Lort Stokes had just taken command. She appears barque-rigged, as in other pictures by men who knew her, and the small vessel to the left may be the colonial cutter Vansittart.
“the best-known watercolour image of the survey ship”
The real ship Beagle was launched at Woolwich Dockyard in 1820 as a 10-gun brig-sloop. After carrying Darwin on her second voyage she made a third and final expedition in 1837 to 1843, surveying Australian waters under John Clements Wickham and then John Lort Stokes; recent research indicates she was sold to shipbreakers in 1870.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Erebus Named ship
The Erebus Passing through the Chain of Bergs, 13 March 1842
Artist John Edward Davis (1815 to 1877)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PW0593)
Medium Watercolour
John Edward Davis sailed on the Ross expedition as second master of the Terror under Francis Crozier, and he made many illustrations of the voyage. This small watercolour, only 11 by 18.5 centimetres, shows the Erebus passing through a chain of icebergs on 13 March 1842. It has none of the studio drama of the later oils; its force is its closeness to the event, the consort ship drawn by an officer who was there as she steered between walls of ice. Pictures like this are the nearest we can come to the expedition as its own men saw it.
The real ship Erebus was a Hecla-class bomb vessel built at Pembroke Dockyard in 1826 and refitted for exploration. She sailed with Terror on James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition of 1839 to 1843 and, fitted with a steam engine, on Sir John Franklin's expedition of 1845; she was abandoned in 1848 and her wreck was found in September 2014.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Speedwell Named ship
Embarkation of the Pilgrims, 1843
Artist Robert Walter Weir (1803 to 1889)
Where to see it United States Capitol Rotunda, Washington, D.C. (Architect of the Capitol)
Medium Oil on canvas
Weir set his scene on the deck of the Speedwell before her departure from Delfshaven on 22 July 1620: William Brewster holds the Bible and the pastor John Robinson leads Governor Carver, William Bradford, Miles Standish and their families in prayer. The words God with us are painted on the sail above, and a rainbow on the left, a sign of hope and divine protection, is given the red, white and blue of the Dutch flag. The ship's name and the date are carved into the deck. The ship herself is the stage for a vow, though the Speedwell would leak and be left behind.
The real ship Speedwell, a 60-ton pinnace built in 1577 as Swiftsure, was bought and refitted at Delfshaven by the Leiden Separatists in 1620 and carried them to Southampton to meet the Mayflower; she leaked so badly that after two attempts she was left behind and the Mayflower sailed alone.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Robert Walter Weir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
Astrolabe and Zélée Named ship
Reconnaissance of Terre Adélie, 20 January 1840 (Reconnaissance de la Terre Adélie, le 20 janvier 1840), from the Atlas pittoresque of Dumont d'Urville's Voyage au Pôle Sud, 1846
Artist After Louis Le Breton (1818 to 1866), with Auguste Mayer and Léon Sabatier
Source Published in the Atlas pittoresque of Voyage au Pôle Sud et dans l'Océanie (Paris, Gide, 1846); impression in the National Library of Australia
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Two years after scurvy drove them from the pack, Dumont d'Urville's corvettes came south again from Hobart, and on 20 January 1840 they reconnoitred the Antarctic coast he named Terre Adélie. Le Breton, who had studied medicine and replaced the expedition's official illustrator after his death, recorded the moment, and his drawing was worked up for the great illustrated atlas of the voyage. In the same weeks the schooner Porpoise of Charles Wilkes's American expedition was working these waters; the ships sighted each other, but through poor communication no contact was made.
The real ship The Astrolabe, formerly the Coquille, and the Zélée sailed from Toulon on 7 September 1837 and returned on 6 November 1840. In early 1840 they followed the Antarctic coast and made experiments to fix the approximate position of the South Magnetic Pole before turning north for Hobart on 1 February.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: After Louis Le Breton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Erebus and HMS Terror Named ship
'Erebus' and 'Terror' in New Zealand, August 1841, c. 1847
Artist John Wilson Carmichael (1799 to 1868)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1214)
Medium Oil on canvas
The companion to Carmichael's Antarctic scene shows the other face of Ross's voyage: Erebus and Terror anchored in a New Zealand bay, the country where they wintered in 1840 and returned in August 1841. The nearer ship has lowered several boats with sailors ready to meet the Maori craft in the foreground, and one canoe comes towards her offering fish, fruit and other goods. The heavy bomb vessels, rebuilt to face the ice, sit peacefully in the calm, and the meeting on the water gives the picture a warmth the polar views never have.
The real ship Erebus, built at Pembroke Dockyard in 1826, and Terror, launched at Topsham in 1813, sailed on James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition, with Francis Crozier commanding Terror. Both were later abandoned in the Arctic ice in 1848 during Franklin's expedition.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Wilson Carmichael, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Erebus and HMS Terror Named ship
HMS 'Erebus' and 'Terror' in the Antarctic, 1847
Artist John Wilson Carmichael (1799 to 1868)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1215)
Medium Oil on canvas
Carmichael shows the two ships of James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition as the only human presence in a world of rough peaks, glaciers and jagged rock. They are tossed in the waves as they navigate a passage through a sound, the ship on the right signalling to the other with flags, while in the foreground a whale sends up a jet of water. It was painted in 1847, two years after the same ships had sailed north with Sir John Franklin. Seen with that knowledge, the picture carries a double charge: a record of a voyage south, and an image of two ships that would never come home.
The real ship Erebus was a Hecla-class bomb vessel built at Pembroke Dockyard in 1826 and refitted for exploration. She sailed with Terror on James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition of 1839 to 1843 and, fitted with a steam engine, on Sir John Franklin's expedition of 1845; she was abandoned in 1848 and her wreck was found in September 2014. Terror was her consort on both voyages.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Wilson Carmichael, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Santa María, Niña and Pinta Named ship
Landing of Columbus, 1847
Artist John Vanderlyn (1775 to 1852)
Where to see it United States Capitol Rotunda, Washington, D.C. (Architect of the Capitol)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned by Congress in 1842 for the Rotunda of the Capitol, Vanderlyn's huge canvas shows Columbus on the beach of Guanahani, which he named San Salvador, on 12 October 1492. Bareheaded, his hat at his feet, he raises the royal banner, while the captains of the Niña and Pinta follow with the banner of Ferdinand and Isabella and islanders watch from behind a tree. Out on the sea behind the crowd the ships lie small on the horizon, the whole reach of the old world reduced to a few hulls offshore. The image travelled far beyond the Capitol on the 15-cent stamp of 1869.
The real ship Santa María, originally La Gallega, was a medium-sized nau or carrack built in Pontevedra, Galicia, the largest and slowest of Columbus's three ships in 1492, sailing with the caravels Niña and Pinta. On 24 December 1492 currents carried her onto a sandbank and she was lost.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Rattlesnake Named ship
HMS Rattlesnake Running through the Coral Barrier on the Louisiade Archipelago, 1849
Artist Oswald Walters Brierly (1817 to 1894)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF5632)
Medium Graphite and watercolour
In 1848 Captain Owen Stanley invited Brierly to join the Rattlesnake's Admiralty survey of northern and eastern Australia and New Guinea, a voyage on which the young Thomas Henry Huxley served as assistant surgeon and naturalist. This drawing, dated 1849, shows the ship running through the coral barrier of the Louisiade Archipelago. It is a picture of nerve and skill: a sailing warship threading a passage through a reef, set down by an artist who was sailing in her.
The real ship An Atholl-class 28-gun sixth-rate corvette launched at Chatham Dockyard on 26 March 1822, Rattlesnake surveyed northern Australia and New Guinea from 1846 to 1850 under Owen Stanley. She was broken up at Chatham in January 1860.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Erebus Named ship
HMS 'Erebus' in the Ice, 1846, 19th century
Artist François Etienne Musin (1820 to 1888)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3325)
Medium Oil on canvas
No artist saw Erebus in the Arctic after 1845, so the Belgian painter Musin, from Ostend, imagined her. For Franklin's last voyage she had been fitted with a steam engine and a screw propeller, and she sailed with Terror; in 1848 both were abandoned in the ice. Musin shows her surrounded by icebergs but still in open water, a gloomy sky letting only a little light onto the scene, while her crew drag boats across the ice in the foreground. Today, with her wreck found, it reads as a vigil for a ship and crew that never came home.
The real ship Erebus was a Hecla-class bomb vessel built at Pembroke Dockyard in 1826 and refitted for exploration. She sailed with Terror on James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition of 1839 to 1843 and, fitted with a steam engine, on Sir John Franklin's expedition of 1845; she was abandoned in 1848 and her wreck was found in September 2014.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: François Etienne Musin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Erebus Named ship
HMS 'Erebus' Passing through the Chain of Bergs, 1842, 19th century
Artist Richard Brydges Beechey (1808 to 1895)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3654)
Medium Oil on canvas
Beechey, a painter who rose to the rank of admiral in the Royal Navy, gave Ross's Antarctic expedition one of its oils: Erebus passing through a chain of icebergs in 1842, a moment also recorded in a small watercolour by J. E. Davis dated 13 March 1842. Ross had been given Erebus and Terror to carry out a magnetic survey in the Antarctic, and the expedition's discoveries included the area later known as the Ross Ice Barrier. The painting turns survey work into a trial of seamanship, a ship with no way on but through.
The real ship Erebus, a Hecla-class bomb vessel built at Pembroke Dockyard in 1826, sailed with Terror on James Clark Ross's Antarctic expedition of 1839 to 1843 and later disappeared with Franklin in the Canadian Arctic; her wreck was found in September 2014.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Richard Brydges Beechey, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Investigator Named ship
The Perilous Situation of HMS 'Investigator', while Wintering in the Pack in 1850 to 1851
Artist Samuel Gurney Cresswell (1827 to 1867)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PZ6687)
Medium Lithograph
Dedicated to Captain McClure, this large sheet by Samuel Gurney Cresswell, the ship's second lieutenant and artist, shows Investigator through her first Arctic winter, wintering in the pack and at the mercy of the moving ice. Cresswell drew it as an officer who lived through it, and the danger is not staged: the ship was later trapped at Mercy Bay for nearly three years and never escaped. It is a document of endurance made from inside the ordeal.
The real ship Investigator was built as a merchant ship by Scotts of Greenock and bought by the Admiralty in February 1848 for the search for Franklin. Under Robert McClure she was trapped in the pack ice at Mercy Bay on Banks Island and abandoned on 3 June 1853, after nearly three years; her wreck was found there in July 2010.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Samuel Gurney Cresswell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Assistance Named ship
HMS 'Assistance' in the Ice, 1853
Artist Thomas Sewell Robins (1810 to 1880)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC4239)
Medium Oil on canvas
When Franklin's Erebus and Terror disappeared in the Canadian Arctic in 1845, search after search was sent to find them. Assistance, under Erasmus Ommanney in Horatio Austin's expedition of 1850 to 1851, called at Cape York in Greenland and took aboard a young Inuit guide, Kallihirua, who led the ship north to check a rumoured massacre of Franklin's men; it proved false. Robins's painting of 1853 shows her in the ice where she wintered, a ship sent to rescue others held fast herself.
The real ship Assistance served in Captain Horatio Austin's Franklin search expedition of 1850 to 1851 under Captain Erasmus Ommanney, wintering in the ice before returning to England in autumn 1851.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Sewell Robins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
Emigrant ship at Sydney Cove Unnamed
Sydney Cove, N.S.W.: Emigrants Leaving the Ship, 1853
Artist Oswald Walters Brierly (1817 to 1894); lithographed by Thomas Picken, printed by Day and Son
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAI0450)
Medium Coloured lithograph
Published on 1 June 1853, Brierly's print shows the moment a long passage ends: emigrants leaving their ship at Sydney Cove. Brierly knew Australian waters well, having sailed there as a guest on the Rattlesnake's survey of 1846 to 1850. After the long voyage out, the ship gives up her people to a new country, and the picture belongs to the other half of the story told by The Last of England: not the farewell but the arrival.
The vessels An unnamed emigrant sailing ship landing her passengers at Sydney Cove, New South Wales, in the early 1850s.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Investigator Named ship
HMS 'Investigator' Trapped in the Ice on the North Coast of Baring Island, 29 August 1851, 1854
Artist Samuel Gurney Cresswell (1827 to 1867), lithographed by William Simpson
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PX8024)
Medium Coloured lithograph
Samuel Gurney Cresswell sailed as second lieutenant and ship's artist of Investigator under Robert McClure, searching for Franklin and for the North-West Passage. His sketches, later published as a folio of lithographs, include this one of the ship trapped in the ice on the north coast of Baring Island on 29 August 1851. When the ship could go no further, Cresswell carried home in autumn 1853 the news that the Passage had been found, and he is credited as the first naval officer to cross it from end to end.
The real ship Investigator was built as a merchant ship by Scotts of Greenock and bought by the Admiralty in February 1848 for the search for Franklin. Under Robert McClure she was trapped in the pack ice at Mercy Bay on Banks Island and abandoned on 3 June 1853, after nearly three years; her wreck was found there in July 2010.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Boat of the Santa María Unnamed
The First Landing of Christopher Columbus in America (Primer desembarco de Cristóbal Colón en América), 1862
Artist Dióscoro Puebla (1831 to 1901)
Where to see it Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (P006766)
Medium Oil on canvas
Puebla, a Spanish academic painter trained in Madrid and Rome, gives the landing the full grand manner, and the Prado bought the picture from him in 1863. Columbus kneels on the rocky shore with his sword lowered, a friar raises his arm and the banners of the expedition are carried up the beach, while sailors still clamber from the boat behind them and the islanders watch from the trees. Out on the bright sea the ships are only pale sails. The voyage is over, and everything turns on the moment of arrival.
The vessels Santa María, originally La Gallega, was a medium-sized nau or carrack built in Pontevedra, Galicia, the largest and the slowest of Columbus's three ships in 1492. On 24 December 1492, with a cabin boy at the helm, currents carried her onto a sandbank and she was lost.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Dióscoro Puebla, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
United States (Isaac Israel Hayes's Arctic expedition ship) Named ship
Aurora Borealis, 1865
Artist Frederic Edwin Church (1826 to 1900)
Where to see it Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1911.4.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Under a dark Arctic sky, the explorer Isaac Israel Hayes's ship lies frozen in the pack ice at the foot of a looming cliff, while the aurora erupts overhead and a dogsled hints at rescue. Hayes, Church's friend and pupil, gave him his sketches on returning from the Arctic in 1861, including one of the ship, and the peak in the painting had been named after Church during the expedition. During the Civil War the northern lights were widely read as a divine omen for the Union cause, and Church set a tiny light shining from the ship's window against them.
“God willing, I trust yet to carry the flag of the great Republic, with not a single star erased from its glorious Union”
The real ship Hayes led his own Arctic expedition in 1860 and 1861, departing in June 1860 aboard the schooner United States, formerly the Spring Hill of Boston, in the hope of reaching the North Pole. His book The Open Polar Sea (1867) tells the voyage.
Sources Smithsonian American Art Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Frederic Edwin Church, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Santa María Named ship
The Departure of Columbus from Palos, Spain, in 1492, 1865
Artist Emanuel Leutze (1816 to 1868)
Where to see it Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead (BIKGM:1166)
Medium Oil on canvas
Leutze, the German-born American history painter best known for Washington Crossing the Delaware, had returned to Columbus throughout his career, from Columbus before the Queen onwards. Here Columbus stands tall in a boat as it pulls away from the shore, one arm flung out ahead, while a woman and child cling together, a friar raises a crucifix and a young man hides his face. Above them flies the banner of the expedition, and beyond, a ship waits under sail. It is Leutze's favourite drama, the lone visionary among the fearful, set in a small crowded boat on a heaving sea.
The real ship Santa María, originally La Gallega, was a medium-sized nau or carrack built in Pontevedra, Galicia, the largest and the slowest of Columbus's three ships in 1492. On 24 December 1492, with a cabin boy at the helm, currents carried her onto a sandbank and she was lost.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Panther Named ship
An Arctic Summer: Boring through the Pack in Melville Bay, 1871
Artist William Bradford (1823 to 1892)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1982.443.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bradford made the first of seven Arctic expeditions in 1861, and this large canvas is based on photographs and sketches from the last of them, in 1869, when he reached about 75 degrees north aboard the Panther with funds from LeGrand Lockwood. The seal boat plies her way through the summer ice along the coast of Greenland, while in the foreground a polar bear gives a parting glance before escaping to the water. The crew, Bradford wrote, had set out to hunt it. It is an American answer to the polar sublime: a small working ship in a vast white world.
“anxious to possess so fine a skin”
The real ship Panther was the steam seal boat that carried Bradford's 1869 art expedition to Greenland, funded by LeGrand Lockwood, as far as about 75 degrees north.
Image: William Bradford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Panther (Arctic steamer, 1869 art expedition) Named ship
The 'Panther' in Melville Bay, 1873
Artist William Bradford (1823 to 1892)
Where to see it Royal Collection Trust (RCIN 401327)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1869 Bradford sailed north in the steamer Panther on what the Royal Collection calls an expedition solely for the purposes of art, leaving St John's, Newfoundland, on 3 July under the United States flag and returning on 3 October. Backed by the financier LeGrand Lockwood and accompanied by the photographers John L. Dunmore and George Critcherson, it was his farthest voyage north, reaching about 75 degrees. Along the Melville Bay coast of north-west Greenland he sketched the midnight sun, and this canvas records the kinds of hazards the little ship faced among the ice. He then spent two years in London, where he published The Arctic Regions.
The real ship Panther was a steamer specially built for Arctic navigation, commanded on Bradford's 1869 voyage by Captain John Bartlett.
Sources Royal Collection · Wikipedia
Image: William Bradford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Halve Maen (Half Moon) Named ship
Discovery of the Hudson River, 1874
Artist Albert Bierstadt (1830 to 1902)
Where to see it Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives, Washington (2004.001.000)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bierstadt, the painter of the American West, campaigned at length to have this picture acquired for the House Chamber. It shows Henry Hudson bringing the Half Moon into the river valley, met by a group of Native Americans, while a rainbow, a sign of a promising beginning, spans the sky between Storm King and Crow's Nest mountains. With its companion, Entrance into Monterey, it commemorated exploration on the East and West coasts, and it hung in the House Chamber until 1901. The ship is small in that vast landscape, yet the whole picture turns on her arrival.
The real ship Halve Maen was a VOC jacht 21 metres long, commissioned by the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company; under Henry Hudson she entered what is now New York harbour in September 1609 and sailed up the river as far as Kinderhook. In 1618, or a few years after, she was destroyed during an English attack on Jakarta.
Sources history.house.gov · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Albert Bierstadt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Halve Maen (Half Moon) Named ship
Henry Hudson in the Half Moon at the Highlands, c. 1875
Artist Thomas Moran (1837 to 1926)
Medium Painting
Thomas Moran, a painter and printmaker of the Hudson River School and younger brother of the marine painter Edward Moran, sets the Half Moon among the Hudson Highlands, where the river runs between mountains north of the harbour. The work is known today only from a reproduction, dated about 1875. It belongs to the same family tradition as his brother's harbour scene: the Dutch ship as the first European visitor to a landscape that American painters of the nineteenth century treated with something close to reverence.
The real ship Halve Maen was a VOC jacht 21 metres long, commissioned by the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company; under Henry Hudson she entered what is now New York harbour in September 1609 and sailed up the river as far as Kinderhook. In 1618, or a few years after, she was destroyed during an English attack on Jakarta.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Print
Mayflower Named ship
The Landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Mass., Dec. 22nd, 1620, 1876
Artist Currier and Ives (publishers, active 1857 to 1907)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.429)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph with touches of gum arabic
Currier and Ives sold American history to a wide public, and this centennial year print shows the Pilgrims coming ashore at Plymouth while, in the right background, the Mayflower lies at anchor in the bay. She is almost an afterthought in the composition, yet everything depends on her: the ship that had carried 102 passengers and a crew of about 30 across the Atlantic in some ten weeks. Prints like this helped fix the image of the ship in the American imagination.
The real ship Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, England, in September 1620 with 102 passengers and reached Cape Cod in November after about ten weeks at sea. No record of the ship exists after 1624, when she was appraised at Rotherhithe; she is believed to have been broken up.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Print
Emigrant ship in the London docks Unnamed
Emigrants, 1880
Artist James Tissot (1836 to 1902)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAG9432)
Medium Drypoint
Tissot set his scene in the London docks: a woman carrying her child and their possessions hesitates to take the hand offered by a man below. Behind her rises a dense backdrop of masts, ropes and spars, which the museum reads as a picture of entrapment, in contrast to the two birds free in the rigging. The ship is the threshold of the whole venture, and Tissot catches the hesitation on it, hope for a better life weighed against the unknown. The painting of 1879 behind the print now survives only as a small replica.
The vessels An unnamed sailing ship taking on emigrants in the London docks, as drawn by Tissot around 1879 to 1880.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Challenger Named ship
HMS Challenger, before 1881
Artist William Frederick Mitchell (1845 to 1914)
Source Published in The Royal Navy in a Series of Illustrations
Medium Painting, published as a plate
William Frederick Mitchell painted Royal Navy and merchant ships for their officers and owners, and his numbered works run to more than 3,500. Here he gives Challenger the portrait he gave any warship, but this corvette went on to a stranger service than most. To let her probe the depths, all but two of her guns were removed and laboratories, extra cabins and a dredging platform were fitted. On her voyage of the 1870s she sailed 68,890 nautical miles on the first global survey of the oceans, organised by the Royal Society.
The real ship Challenger, a Pearl-class corvette, was launched at Woolwich Dockyard on 13 February 1858. After the Royal Society's survey voyage of the 1870s she became a receiving hulk in the Medway from 1883, and was sold on 6 January 1921 and broken up; her figurehead survives at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: William Frederick Mitchell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Shallop of the Discovery Unnamed
The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson, 1881
Artist John Collier (1850 to 1934)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (N01616)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 23 June 1611 the crew of the Discovery mutinied in Hudson Bay and cast Henry Hudson, his son and others adrift in a small boat. Collier paints them after the ship has gone: Hudson in black, grey-bearded, at the helm, staring ahead and holding the hand of the boy at his feet, while a man with a vacant gaze huddles under a fur beside them. An iceberg and a snow-covered mountain close the view. Nothing more is known of them. The painting, in the Tate since 1881, turned its viewers' minds to the Arctic searches of their own century.
The vessels Hudson's last voyage, in search of the North-West Passage, was made in the Discovery, a ship that had already sailed into Hudson Strait under George Weymouth in 1602. After the mutiny of June 1611 Hudson and his companions were set adrift in a small boat and never seen again, and the Discovery returned to England.
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Mayflower Named ship
The Mayflower on Her Arrival in Plymouth Harbor, 1882
Artist William Formby Halsall (1841 to 1919)
Where to see it Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Massachusetts
Medium Oil on canvas
Halsall, born in Kirkdale in England, settled in Massachusetts and became one of its marine painters, and this is his picture of the Mayflower at rest in Plymouth harbour, painted in 1882 and now at Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth. There is no crowd and no rock, only the ship that had carried 102 passengers and a crew of about 30 across the Atlantic in the autumn of 1620. She stayed in the harbour through the hard first winter, while her own sailors were decimated by disease, and sailed for England in April 1621.
The real ship Mayflower, an English square-rigged merchant ship of about 180 tons, sailed from Plymouth on 16 September 1620 with 102 passengers, lay in Plymouth harbour through the winter of 1620 to 1621 and sailed for England on 15 April 1621. She was appraised at Rotherhithe in 1624 and is believed to have been broken up.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: William Formby Halsall, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Polaris Named ship
The 'Polaris', Far North, 1882
Artist William Bradford (1823 to 1892)
Where to see it Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (962.33.3)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bradford painted Charles Francis Hall's Polaris a decade after her loss: a dark-hulled steamer held fast in the ice beneath towering icebergs, while figures work among boats and stores dragged out across the floe. The Polaris expedition of 1871 to 1873 reached 82° 29′ N by ship, a record at the time, but Hall died at Thank God Harbor, nineteen of the party drifted six months on an ice floe, and the damaged ship was run aground near Etah in October 1872. In Bradford's sombre light the ship already looks like a camp as much as a vessel.
The real ship Polaris was the ship of the United States government-funded Arctic expedition under Charles Francis Hall; she reached a record 82° 29′ N in 1871, wintered at Thank God Harbor, and was run aground and wrecked near Etah, Greenland, in October 1872.
Image: William Bradford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
SS Lusitania Named ship
Coming South, 1886
Artist Tom Roberts (1856 to 1931)
Where to see it National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (acquired 1967)
Medium Painting
Tom Roberts based this painting on sketches he made when returning to Australia aboard the steamship Lusitania in 1885, after four years in Europe. It shows migrants coming to Australia from Europe on the deck of the ship during the long passage. The National Gallery of Victoria calls it a definitive image of the migrant experience and Roberts's first exploration of one of the great themes of Australian life. The ship is a whole temporary world here, the place where old lives end and new ones have not yet begun.
“a definitive image of the migrant experience”
The real ship Roberts sailed home to Australia in 1885 aboard the steamship Lusitania, and the painting grew from the sketches he made on board.
Sources Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
SS Vega Named ship
The Explorer A. E. Nordenskiöld, 1886
Artist Georg von Rosen (1843 to 1923)
Where to see it Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NM 1396)
Medium Oil on canvas
Von Rosen painted Nordenskiöld in 1886 standing in the foreground in a black fur with a telescope, while the Vega lies in the pack ice behind him. In 1878 to 1880 the ship carried him through the Northeast Passage along the north coast of Eurasia. The canvas, more than three metres high, was given to the Nationalmuseum in 1887 by Oscar Dickson. The ship is placed in the portrait like a coat of arms: without her the man would be only a scientist, with her he is an explorer.
The real ship Built at Bremerhaven in 1872 as a barque with a 60 hp auxiliary steam engine, Vega left Karlskrona on 22 June 1878 for the Northeast Passage and was held in the ice from 28 September 1878 until 18 July 1879, only 120 miles short of the Bering Strait. She was reported sunk in Melville Bay, west of Greenland, in 1903.
Sources Wikipedia (SV) · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Georg von Rosen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Mayflower Named ship
The Return of the Mayflower, 1886
Artist L. Birge Harrison (1854 to 1929)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Treadway Toomey Auctions, 2015)
Medium Painting
In April 1621 the Mayflower sailed for England and left the survivors of the first winter behind. Harrison paints not the ship but someone who stays: a woman in a long dark cloak on a bare, sandy shore, one hand reaching out towards a tiny sail on the bright horizon. The ship is almost nothing, a small shape on the light, and yet she carries the whole feeling of the picture, the last link with home slipping away. Harrison, a Philadelphia-born painter of genre and landscape, made it in 1886.
The real ship Mayflower lay in Plymouth harbour through the winter of 1620 to 1621, while her own crew was decimated by disease, and set sail for England on 15 April 1621.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: L. Birge Harrison, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
Santa María (study) Named ship
Ship Study for The Landing of Columbus (from a sketchbook), c. 1891
Artist Albert Bierstadt (1830 to 1902)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1995.379.3c recto, Bequest of Marguerite H. Rohlfs, 1995)
Medium Graphite on wove paper, in a bound sketchbook
Before painting the ships for his Landing of Columbus, Bierstadt worked them out in a small pocket sketchbook, now in the Metropolitan Museum. This page shows his working mind: a quick, sure outline of a three-masted hull with a high stern, long yards and a boat alongside, with a pencil note in the corner. It is the opposite of the finished canvas, with no light and no drama, only a painter trying to get the rig right for a ship that no one had drawn from life.
The real ship Santa María, originally La Gallega, was a medium-sized nau or carrack built in Pontevedra, Galicia, the largest and the slowest of Columbus's three ships in 1492. On 24 December 1492, with a cabin boy at the helm, currents carried her onto a sandbank and she was lost.
Sources The Met · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Halve Maen (Half Moon) Named ship
Henrik Hudson Entering New York Harbor, September 11, 1609, 1892
Artist Edward Moran (1829 to 1901)
Where to see it Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Medium Oil on canvas
Edward Moran, an English-born marine painter who made his name in Philadelphia, painted this arrival of the Half Moon in 1892, when he was deep in his most important project, a series of thirteen paintings on the maritime history of the United States in which Henry Hudson had a place. The date in the title, 11 September 1609, fixes the moment the Dutch ship came into the harbour that would become New York. The picture now belongs to the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, one of the founding images of the city seen from the sea.
The real ship Halve Maen was a VOC jacht 21 metres long, commissioned by the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company; under Henry Hudson she entered what is now New York harbour in September 1609 and sailed up the river as far as Kinderhook. In 1618, or a few years after, she was destroyed during an English attack on Jakarta.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Print
Santa María, Niña and Pinta Named ship
Columbus Taking Possession of the New Country, 1893
Artist L. Prang and Co., Boston (publisher)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (Prints and Photographs, cph.3b49587)
Medium Colour print
Published by the Prang firm of Boston in 1893, this bright colour print put the landing within reach of ordinary American homes. Columbus kneels with drawn sword beside the royal standard, his companions hold the banners of the expedition, and behind them the three ships lie close inshore in a turquoise bay, their castles, pennants and furled sails drawn with loving clarity while boats bring men ashore. The ships are the most carefully made thing in the picture, as if the printer knew they were what people wanted to see.
The real ship Santa María, originally La Gallega, was a medium-sized nau or carrack built in Pontevedra, Galicia, the largest and the slowest of Columbus's three ships in 1492. On 24 December 1492, with a cabin boy at the helm, currents carried her onto a sandbank and she was lost.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: L. Prang and Co., Boston, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Santa María, Niña and Pinta Named ship
The Landing of Columbus, c. 1893
Artist Albert Bierstadt (1830 to 1902)
Where to see it City of Plainfield, New Jersey
Medium Oil on canvas
Bierstadt made the landing a landscape of wonder. Great trees and palms frame a golden beach, islanders watch from the shade, and Columbus's party gathers on the sand with banners beside their boats while the ships ride at anchor out on a glowing sea. At about 1.8 by 3 metres it is a public picture, now owned by the City of Plainfield in New Jersey, and the little ships are placed like punctuation at the end of a long sentence of light. A sketchbook in the Metropolitan Museum preserves his pencil studies of the ships for it.
The real ship Santa María, originally La Gallega, was a medium-sized nau or carrack built in Pontevedra, Galicia, the largest and the slowest of Columbus's three ships in 1492. On 24 December 1492, with a cabin boy at the helm, currents carried her onto a sandbank and she was lost.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Albert Bierstadt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Monção river canoes at Araritaguaba Unnamed
Departure of the Monsoon (Partida da Monção), 1897
Artist José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior (1850 to 1899)
Where to see it Museu Paulista (Museu do Ipiranga), São Paulo
Medium Oil on canvas
A monção was a river expedition from São Paulo into the far interior, and this canvas shows the last moments before one leaves the port of Araritaguaba, now Porto Feliz, on the Tietê, bound for Cuiabá in Mato Grosso. An elderly priest, perhaps the painter's early patron Father Miguel Correa Pacheco, blesses the departure; families watch, and a child covers its face and weeps. Along the bank the monçoeiros already sit in their canoes, and one man, a foot on the gunwale, pulls the rope that still holds his boat to land. The whole picture is a farewell.
The vessels The monções were river convoys that carried people and cargo from São Paulo down the Tietê towards the goldfields of Cuiabá, discovered in 1718; convoys were already making the dangerous journey in 1720.
Sources Wikipedia (PT)
Image: José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Resolution and HMS Adventure Named ship
HMS Resolution, Captain Jas Cook, and HMS Adventure, Captain Furneaux, off Cape Palliser, New Zealand, in 1773, 1898
Artist Matthew Thomas Clayton (1831 to 1922)
Where to see it Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland (1899/3)
Medium Oil on canvas
Clayton shows Resolution driving through a heavy green sea under shortened sail, while Adventure is only a small shape far off beneath a stormy sky. Off this coast in October 1773 the two ships were caught by one of the spring gales common to Cook Strait: Resolution lost her fore topgallant mast and her sails were shredded, Adventure was blown to leeward and found again, and then, early on 30 October, the two ships parted company for the last time. Cook searched the bays for her and finally left Cape Palliser on 26 November without his consort.
The real ship Resolution and Adventure sailed together on Cook's second voyage. After their final separation off New Zealand in 1773, Furneaux in Adventure made landfall near Cape Palliser, while Cook, failing to find him, continued the exploration of the southern Pacific alone in Resolution.
Sources Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Matthew Thomas Clayton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
São Gabriel and Gama's fleet Named ship
The Arrival of Vasco da Gama at Calicut in 1498 (A chegada de Vasco da Gama a Calicute em 1498), c. 1900
Artist Alfredo Roque Gameiro (1864 to 1935)
Where to see it Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, Lisbon (E. 292 A.)
Medium Colour print
Roque Gameiro, a Portuguese painter, watercolourist and illustrator who worked on a deluxe edition of The Lusiads published in 1900, pictures the end of the sea road to India as a crowded ceremony. Gama and his men come ashore at Calicut among dense crowds of townspeople, a canopied palanquin waits, and temples and palms rise behind. Far out in the bright water his ships lie at anchor. The picture makes the small ships the key that opened a whole world, as Portugal's patriotic art of the time wished.
The real ship Gama's fleet of 1497 was led by the naus São Gabriel and São Rafael with the caravel Berrio; it left Malindi on 24 April 1498 and landed near Kozhikode (Calicut) on 20 May 1498, completing the sea route from Europe to India.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Alfredo Roque Gameiro, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Cabral's fleet Unnamed
The Landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral at Porto Seguro in 1500 (Desembarque de Pedro Álvares Cabral em Porto Seguro em 1500), 1900
Artist Oscar Pereira da Silva (1867 to 1939)
Where to see it Museu Paulista da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo
Medium Oil on canvas
Finished in 1900, four hundred years after the event, this canvas established Pereira da Silva as a leading painter in Brazil, and it is now the most widely reproduced image of the landing in school books. The picture is divided into two clear zones. On the beach the Indigenous people run and gather among the trees; on the water the Portuguese come in by boat, and behind them the fleet lies at anchor with red crosses on its sails and banners. The ships are the frontier between two worlds.
The vessels Cabral's fleet of 13 ships and about 1,500 men sailed from Lisbon on 9 March 1500 bound for India and anchored off the Brazilian coast on 22 April 1500, near the mountain Cabral named Monte Pascoal.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (PT) · Wikipedia
Image: Oscar Pereira da Silva, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Varangian longships on the route to Novgorod Unnamed
Guests from Overseas (Zamorskie gosti), 1901
Artist Nicholas Roerich (1874 to 1947)
Where to see it State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1899 Roerich travelled the great waterway to Novgorod and wrote that it was wonderful and terrible to realise that Varangian boats had once sailed these very waters. That journey gave him the subject, which he painted two years later in Paris. The long boats with their red sails move across a dark blue river, and the elements come straight from Old Russian icon painters and applied art, arranged with the flat, decorative clarity of a panel; Roerich himself subtitled the work folk painting. Nicholas II bought it in 1902 for the palace at Tsarskoye Selo, and it now hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery.
The vessels The boats evoke the ladyi of the Varangians, the Norse travellers whose route the painter followed along the great waterway to Novgorod.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Nicholas Roerich, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Endeavour and her boats Named ship
Landing of Captain Cook at Botany Bay, 1770, 1902
Artist E. Phillips Fox (1865 to 1915)
Where to see it National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (119-2, Gilbee Bequest 1902)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in Britain in 1902 and acquired for Melbourne through the Gilbee Bequest that same year, this is the most important of Fox's official commissions and shows the clear influence of his teacher Gérôme. Cook stands on the sand with his arm outstretched while a sailor behind him holds the red ensign aloft; on the rise ahead, two Aboriginal men raise their spears. Beyond the boats drawn up in the shallows the Endeavour lies off the shore under sail, the ship that had brought the first Europeans to this coast.
The real ship Endeavour was launched at Whitby in June 1764 as the collier Earl of Pembroke and bought by the Navy in 1768 for Cook's first voyage of 1768 to 1771, on which she reached the east coast of Australia and Cook went ashore at Botany Bay.
Sources NGV · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: E. Phillips Fox, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
James Caird Named ship
In Sight of Our Goal: Nearing South Georgia (illustration in Shackleton's South), 1916 to 1919
Artist Attributed to George Marston (1882 to 1940)
Source Published in Ernest Shackleton, South (London, 1919)
Medium Drawing, reproduced in half-tone
George Marston was the expedition's artist, and while the men were marooned on Elephant Island some of his oil paints were used to caulk the very boat shown here. The James Caird climbs a huge grey sea under her small sails, the men hunched low, while the mountains of South Georgia rise through the spray ahead. After a voyage of 17 days and some 1,300 kilometres across the Southern Ocean, this was the sight that meant rescue; in the end the whole crew of the Endurance came home alive.
The real ship James Caird, a 22.5-foot (6.9-metre) boat from Endurance named after the Dundee philanthropist Sir James Key Caird, was strengthened by the carpenter Harry McNish and sailed 1,300 kilometres from Elephant Island to South Georgia in 1916 with Shackleton and five companions. She has been on display at Dulwich College since 1922.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Attributed to George Marston, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
James Caird, Dudley Docker and Stancomb Wills Named ship
'There was no Sleep for us that Night, so we lit the Blubber Stove' (illustration in Shackleton's South), 1916 to 1919
Artist George Marston (1882 to 1940)
Source Published in Ernest Shackleton, South (London, 1919)
Medium Drawing, reproduced in half-tone
After Endurance was crushed and sank, her crew camped on the drifting ice with the three boats they had saved, and George Marston, who helped design the tents used on the floe, drew what it was like. Figures gather around a smoking blubber stove on a small floe, the boats hauled up beside them, while open water and broken ice stretch away to the horizon. The boats are the most precious objects in the picture: everything depended on them, and when the ice broke up in April 1916 they carried the whole party to Elephant Island.
The real ship The three boats of Endurance were named by Shackleton after principal backers of the expedition: James Caird, Dudley Docker and Stancomb Wills. The party took to them on 8 April 1916 as the ice broke up and reached Elephant Island after seven days; the James Caird then sailed on to South Georgia.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Santa María, with Niña and Pinta Named ship
Ships of Christopher Columbus, 1927
Artist N. C. Wyeth (1882 to 1945)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (reproduction, LC-USZC2-3751)
Medium Painting (known from a Library of Congress colour reproduction)
Wyeth, the American painter and illustrator, paints the Santa María as an adventure. She drives through breaking seas, red crosses on her sails and a banner streaming from the masthead, while two small ships follow on the horizon under a sky of orange and blue with the sun low on the sea. There is no landing and no ceremony, only the ship alone on the ocean, which is where the voyage really happened. The picture dates from 1927 and survives in the Library of Congress as a colour reproduction.
The real ship Santa María, originally La Gallega, was a medium-sized nau or carrack built in Pontevedra, Galicia, the largest and the slowest of Columbus's three ships in 1492. On 24 December 1492, with a cabin boy at the helm, currents carried her onto a sandbank and she was lost.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Pourquoi-Pas? Named ship
Departure of the Pourquoi-Pas? in Search of Nobile (Départ du Pourquoi-Pas? à la recherche de Nobile), 1928
Artist Anonymous
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (11 OA 296)
Medium Oil on panel
A quick, direct oil sketch dated 1928 shows Charcot's white-hulled Pourquoi-Pas? moored bow on at the quay, her yards squared and rigging dense against a grey sky, a sailor on the quayside and a small crowd gathered to see her off. That year she sailed north on a rescue mission: to search for the French flying boat Latham 47, lost with Roald Amundsen aboard while he was himself looking for Umberto Nobile and the airship Italia. The ship of the Antarctic here becomes a ship of hope, leaving on a search for men already lost in the ice.
The real ship Built at Saint-Malo by François Gautier and launched in 1908, the 40 m three-masted barque Pourquoi-Pas?, with an auxiliary motor and three laboratories, carried Charcot's second Antarctic expedition of 1908 to 1910 and many Arctic voyages. She was wrecked off Iceland on 16 September 1936 with Charcot aboard; of the forty men, only one survived.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Centurion and Nuestra Señora de Covadonga Named ship
Anson's 'Centurion' Taking the Spanish Galleon 'Nuestra Señora de Cabadonga', 1743, before 1934
Artist Charles Dixon (1872 to 1934)
Medium Painting, reproduced in a book
Charles Dixon painted Anson's great prize for a generation that knew the voyage as one of the heroic stories of the Royal Navy. His picture shows the Centurion taking the Spanish galleon off Cape Espiritu Santo in the Philippines on 20 June 1743, the treasure ship that made the long and costly voyage worth its losses. Where Samuel Scott's version is a calm record painted for those who had been there, Dixon's belongs to the age of illustrated histories, when the Centurion's fight was retold as a tale of daring for readers at home.
The real ship Centurion was Anson's flagship on the 1740 to 1744 voyage; she took the Covadonga on 20 June 1743 near Cape Espiritu Santo in the Philippines and brought her into Canton, where the galleon was sold.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Painting
A First Fleet ship at anchor in Sydney Cove Unnamed
The Founding of Australia. By Capt. Arthur Phillip R.N. Sydney Cove, Jan. 26th 1788, 1937
Artist Algernon Talmage (1871 to 1939)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (ML 1222)
Medium Oil sketch
The Australasian Pioneers Club commissioned Talmage to paint the founding of the colony for the 150th anniversary of 1938, and the finished picture was unveiled at the Royal Academy in London in 1937; this oil sketch belongs to the State Library of New South Wales. Governor Phillip and his officers stand beneath the newly raised Union flag at Sydney Cove, marines drawn up in red, while out on the still water of the cove a ship of the First Fleet lies at anchor. The painting was made as a celebration of empire and is read very differently today; the ship is the quiet witness to both views.
The vessels The First Fleet of eleven ships, led by HMS Sirius, moved from Botany Bay to Port Jackson and anchored in Sydney Cove, where the colony was founded on 26 January 1788.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Algernon Talmage, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Santa María Named ship
The Santa Maria at Sea, before 1939
Artist Michael Zeno Diemer (1867 to 1939)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Oil on masonite
Diemer was first famous for vast panoramic battle paintings and is now known chiefly for his marine paintings and postcard designs. Here the Santa María comes straight at us out of a dark swell, her bluff bow throwing up spray and her worn red sails full, with, as the work's description records, the figure of Columbus at the bow. It is the voyage reduced to its essentials: one ship, one man and the open sea.
The real ship Santa María, originally La Gallega, was a medium-sized nau or carrack built in Pontevedra, Galicia, the largest and the slowest of Columbus's three ships in 1492. On 24 December 1492, with a cabin boy at the helm, currents carried her onto a sandbank and she was lost.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Michael Zeno Diemer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Voyages and exploration · Print
Isabella of Hull Named ship
The Arctic Ocean: Captain Ross and the Crew of the 'Victory' Saved by the 'Isabella' of Hull, undated
Artist After John Ross (1777 to 1856)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAD6090)
Medium Coloured engraving
After four winters stranded in the Arctic, John Ross and the crew of the Victory were rescued in 1833, when many people in England believed them dead. By coincidence the ship that found them was the Isabella, the vessel Ross himself had commanded in 1818, since returned to Hull as an Arctic whaler. Her astonished crew told Ross that he had been dead for two years. Few coincidences in the history of the sea are so complete, and the print catches the moment a lost expedition is handed back to the world.
The real ship Isabella was the hired vessel Ross commanded on his Arctic voyage of 1818, with Alexander under William Edward Parry, before returning to Hull as a whaler. In 1833 she rescued Ross's party, who had left their ship Victory, a side-wheel steamer financed by Felix Booth, on 29 May 1832.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Beagle Named ship
HMS 'Beagle' at Anchor in a Calm, undated
Artist Oswald Walters Brierly (1817 to 1894)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAD9324)
Medium Graphite and watercolour
A small sheet by Brierly, who later sailed with the Rattlesnake on her survey of northern Australia and New Guinea, shows Darwin's Beagle at anchor in a calm. After the famous voyage with Darwin, the Beagle went on to a third commission surveying large parts of the Australian coast from 1837 to 1843. Here she is simply at rest, and the stillness is the point: a working survey ship caught between voyages, as her crews must often have known her.
The real ship A Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop launched at Woolwich Dockyard in 1820, Beagle carried Darwin in 1831 to 1836 and surveyed large parts of the Australian coast from 1837 to 1843. In 1870 she was sold to be broken up.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Print
HMS Challenger Named ship
Challenger at Kerguelen, undated
Artist John James Wild (1824 to 1900)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PBD4528)
Medium Coloured lithograph
Wild sailed with the Challenger expedition of 1872 to 1876, the first great voyage devoted to the science of the sea, and here he shows the ship at the remote island of Kerguelen. To let her probe the depths, all but two of her guns had been removed and laboratories, extra cabins and a dredging platform installed, and she carried 181 miles of Italian hemp for sounding and dredging. The picture shows a warship turned scientific instrument, at the far edge of the world.
The real ship Launched at Woolwich Dockyard on 13 February 1858, the Pearl-class corvette Challenger sailed from Portsmouth on 21 December 1872 with George Nares in command and Charles Wyville Thomson as chief scientist, covering 68,890 nautical miles. She was sold in 1921 and broken up; her figurehead survives at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Painting
Leif Erikson's ship Unnamed
Leif Erikson Discovers America, undated
Artist Hans Dahl (1849 to 1937)
Medium Painting
Dahl, a Norwegian painter who worked between Norway and Germany, stages the first European landfall in America as a saga. Leif, red-cloaked and helmeted with an axe in his hand and a shield on his back, stands on a rocky headland looking inland while his armed men climb up behind him, one pointing ahead. Below them their ship lies off the rocks with her crew still aboard and a small boat pulling in. Half a millennium before Columbus, the ship is the whole claim of the picture.
The vessels According to the sagas of Icelanders, Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red who founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland, sailed west and established a settlement at Vinland, usually interpreted as coastal North America, about five hundred years before Columbus.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Beagle Named ship
Mount Sarmiento, Tierra del Fuego, Showing the Survey Ship HMS 'Beagle', undated
Artist Conrad Martens (1801 to 1878)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF6229)
Medium Watercolour
Here the Beagle is shown beneath Mount Sarmiento in Tierra del Fuego, a mountain and a ship as the whole subject. Martens joined her late in 1833 as replacement draughtsman and there began his lifelong friendship with Darwin, who sailed as the captain's gentleman companion and a self-financing naturalist. Later, in Sydney, Darwin and FitzRoy commissioned from Martens paintings of the Beagle's voyages in Tierra del Fuego and the Pacific. The picture keeps one small ship in the scale of a wild coast.
The real ship A Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop launched at Woolwich Dockyard in 1820, Beagle carried Darwin round the world in 1831 to 1836 under Robert FitzRoy. In 1870 she was sold to be broken up.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Voyages and exploration · Painting
HMS Terror Named ship
Perilous Position of HMS 'Terror', Captain Back, in the Arctic Regions in the Summer of 1837, undated
Artist William Smyth (1800 to 1877)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3655)
Medium Oil on canvas
Years before she vanished with Franklin, Terror nearly died in the ice under George Back, on his expedition to find a sea route from Hudson Bay to the Polar Sea. Trapped near Southampton Island, she was held in the ice for ten months, and at one point the pressure forced her some twelve metres up the face of a cliff of ice. William Smyth, a naval officer and artist, paints her heeled and lifted on the grinding floes under a moonlit sky while her men haul a boat. She nearly sank on the way home, and Back beached her at Rathmullan in Ireland, yet she was repaired and sent to sea again.
The real ship Terror was a Vesuvius-class bomb vessel built at Topsham in Devon and launched in June 1813; she took part in the bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814. Converted for polar service, she sailed with Back in 1836 to 1837, with Ross to the Antarctic in 1839 to 1843 and with Franklin from 1845; her wreck was found in Terror Bay in September 2016.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Voyages and exploration · Drawing
HMS Beagle Named ship
The Survey Ship HMS 'Beagle' Running into Berkeley Sound, Falkland Islands, undated
Artist Conrad Martens (1801 to 1878)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF6227)
Medium Watercolour
In Montevideo late in 1833 FitzRoy engaged Martens as draughtsman to replace the Beagle's artist Augustus Earle, who had fallen ill, and Martens began a lifelong friendship with Darwin. This watercolour shows the Beagle running into Berkeley Sound in the Falkland Islands. Martens left the ship at Valparaiso in 1834 and settled in Sydney, and when the Beagle arrived there in 1836 Darwin and FitzRoy commissioned paintings of the voyage from him. The small ship carries the memory of a voyage the three men had shared.
The real ship A Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop launched at Woolwich Dockyard on 11 May 1820, Beagle carried Darwin round the world in 1831 to 1836 under Robert FitzRoy. In 1870 she was sold to be broken up.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
Dutch East Indiaman being careened Unnamed
Dutch East Indiaman (from Navium Variae Figurae et Formae), 1647
Artist Wenceslaus Hollar (1607 to 1677)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (25.83.7)
Medium Etching
Hollar, the Bohemian etcher who died in London, shows the side of the East India trade that ship portraits leave out: the upkeep. Six men on a raft caulk the planks of a hull in harbour while carpenters work on her deck, and to the right a fully fitted ship lies careened in the water, sailors on a raft treating her underwater timber among clouds of black smoke. The sheet belongs to his set of twelve plates of Dutch ships, Navium Variae Figurae et Formae, etched in 1647.
“sailors on a raft treating the under-water timber among clouds of black smoke”
The vessels An unnamed Dutch East Indiaman. Hollar shows one hull being caulked in harbour and a second, fully fitted ship careened so that her underwater timber could be treated.
Sources The Met
Merchant ships · Painting
A Dutch man-of-war and other Dutch ships in the harbour of Genoa Unnamed
The Port of Genoa, c. 1660
Artist Adriaen van der Cabel (1631 to 1705)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0754, Palmer Collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
A Dutchman who lived in Rome from 1656 to 1668 and adopted an Italian palette there, van der Cabel painted this impression of the busy port of Genoa in the mid-seventeenth century. A Dutch man-of-war lies bow on at the left, another ship fires a salute, and further right smoke rises from a hull, perhaps being breamed, the burning of weed and barnacles from her bottom. Dutch ships crowd the far side of the harbour beneath the towers of the city. In front, two gentlemen ride past a ruined tower, with donkeys laden with baskets: the Mediterranean seen through northern eyes.
The vessels The ships are unnamed Dutch warships and merchantmen in the harbour of Genoa; one may be undergoing breaming, the burning off of weed and barnacles from the hull.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Adriaen van der Cabel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
East India Company ship Unnamed
An English East Indiaman, c. 1720
Artist Peter Monamy (1681 to 1749)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1011)
Medium Oil on canvas
Monamy began as a house painter and taught himself marine painting in the shadow of Van de Velde the Younger, and this early Indiaman shows why the Company's ships caught the imagination. She wears the red and white striped jack and ensign of the Honourable East India Company, a lion figurehead carved with ornament, a pennant at her main, and men busy aloft as she begins to take in sail. The odd, cropped composition suggests she was once part of a larger picture, but the ship herself is fully alive.
The vessels An unnamed ship of the Honourable East India Company, flying its red and white striped jack and ensign.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
East Indiaman hove to off a harbour Unnamed
An East Indiaman in a Fresh Breeze, c. 1750s
Artist Charles Brooking (c. 1723 to 1759)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1019)
Medium Oil on canvas
Brooking catches a routine moment every sailor of the time knew: an East Indiaman lying hove to, red ensign flying, probably waiting for a boat, perhaps to take off her pilot. A small boat has just left the harbour wall to fetch him, while other ships sail on in the fresh breeze. Brooking's range shows the influence of Simon de Vlieger and Willem van de Velde the Younger, but the museum calls his approach uncompromisingly individual, and his care over detail shows real knowledge of seamanship and ship design. By 1755 his reputation as a marine painter was well established; he died four years later.
The vessels An unnamed East India Company ship, shown hove to off a harbour, probably to drop or collect her pilot.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Charles Brooking, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Merchant ships and small craft at the entrance to the Old Port of Marseille Unnamed
The Entrance to the Port of Marseille (L'Entrée du port de Marseille), 1754
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 8293)
Medium Oil on canvas
Signed 'Peint par Joseph Vernet à Marseille en 1754', this is the first canvas of the royal series of the Ports of France commissioned for Louis XV. Vernet looks out towards the harbour mouth guarded by Fort Saint-Jean and the Citadelle Saint-Nicolas, and fills the foreground with the people of Marseille. The Louvre notes that he drew himself there, sketching, and the Salon booklet of 1755 pointed out the portrait of a man of 117 in good health, the old soldier Annibal Camoux. The ships are the reason for the view, yet Vernet makes the picture as much about the people who lived from them.
“Peint par Joseph Vernet à Marseille en 1754”
The vessels Merchant ships and harbour craft at the entrance to the port of Marseille, guarded by Fort Saint-Jean and the Citadelle Saint-Nicolas; the vessels are not named.
Sources Louvre · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
A French merchant ship with vermilion stern and a Dutch merchantman in the Old Port of Marseille Unnamed
The Interior of the Port of Marseille, seen from the Pavillon de l'Horloge du Parc (L'Intérieur du port de Marseille, vu du Pavillon de l'Horloge du Parc), 1754
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (5 OA 3 D, deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
Vernet took his view from the top of the clock pavilion above the quay to take in the whole width of the Old Port. Below him a crowd of every rank mingles: nobles, clergy, dockers, merchants and beggars, and figures in eastern dress among jars, bales and loose grain from all round the Mediterranean. Two ships hold the centre of the basin, a French vessel with a vermilion stern and a Mediterranean style of mast, and a Dutch ship beside her, a small lesson in how international Marseille was. The Musée national de la Marine notes that Vernet drew himself into the crowd with his wife Virginie and their son Livio.
“Prospérité et abondance imprègnent ces œuvres où les échanges commerciaux sont omniprésents”
The vessels Two unnamed trading ships: the French one has a vermilion-painted stern and a mast rig typical of Mediterranean practice, the Dutch-flagged one the build of northern ships, a sign of Marseille's international trade.
Sources Musée national de la Marine · Louvre · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Merchant ships · Painting
A frigate of the Order of Malta and a lateen-rigged coaster at Antibes Unnamed
The Port of Antibes in Provence, seen from the Land Side (Le Port d'Antibes en Provence, vu du côté de la terre), 1756
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (INV 8299, deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
Antibes stood on the frontier between France and Italy, and Vernet admitted its harbour was modest; he hoped, he told Marigny, that it would still make a good effect in paint. So he let the setting speak: sunset from inside the port, the natural anchorage between two rocky points, Fort Carré to the east and the snowy Alps on the horizon. At the entrance ride a frigate under the flag of the Order of Malta and a lateen-rigged coaster. In front, soldiers march into town, a man smokes his pipe and peasant women gather figs and oranges.
“j'espère que le port, quoique peu considérable, ne faira pas un movais effet en peinture”
The vessels A frigate flying the flag of the Order of Malta and a lateen-rigged coaster at the entrance to the Anse Saint-Roch; neither is named.
Sources Louvre · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Image: Joseph Vernet; photo Jean-Pierre Dalbéra from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Merchant shipping on the Garonne at Bordeaux Unnamed
View of Part of the Port and Town of Bordeaux, taken from the Salinières side (Vue d'une partie du Port et de la ville de Bordeaux prise du côté des Salinières), 1759
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (INV 8301, deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
After Sète, Vernet moved on to Bordeaux and gave the city two canvases, of which this is the first, taken from the Salinières side of the quays. Signed 'Peint par Joseph Vernet à Bordeaux', it shows the Garonne crowded with shipping beside a long line of stately façades, under a storm cloud. The pair were shown at the Salon of 1759, where Diderot marvelled that Vernet's whole talent lay in fourteen or fifteen canvases, the seas rising and calming at his command.
“Les mers se soulèvent et se tranquillisent à son gré”
The vessels In the eighteenth century Bordeaux turned to colonial trade with the Americas, above all the Antilles, and became the leading port of France. The ships in the picture are not named.
Sources Louvre · fr.wikisource.org · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Merchant shipping on the Garonne at Bordeaux Unnamed
View of the Port of Bordeaux, taken from the Château Trompette (Vue du port de Bordeaux, prise du château Trompette), 1759
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
The pendant to the Salinières view looks along the Garonne from the Château Trompette, over the river and the ships that made Bordeaux rich. Signed 'Peint par Joseph Vernet à Bordeaux en 1759', it was exhibited with its companion at the Salon of that year. From the terrace, elegant strollers look down on the quays, while tall ships lie at anchor and small sailing craft cross the broad river. Seen together, the two canvases make a portrait of a merchant city in the years of its Atlantic trade.
“Peint par Joseph Vernet à Bordeaux en 1759”
The vessels Merchant ships at anchor and river craft on the Garonne at Bordeaux, a port that grew rich on colonial trade in the eighteenth century. The ships are not named.
Sources Louvre · fr.wikisource.org · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Shipping on the Adour at Bayonne Unnamed
View of Bayonne, taken halfway up the Glacis of the Citadel (Vue de Bayonne, prise à mi-côte sur le Glacis de la Citadelle), 1760 to 1761
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (INV 8303, deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
The commission asked for one view of Bayonne, but Vernet could find no single viewpoint that told the whole story and won Marigny's leave to paint two. This one is the town's portrait: Bayonne at sunset seen from above on the right bank of the Adour, framed by two trees, with the cathedral before its nineteenth-century rebuilding, the Château Neuf and the old Porte de France. Shepherds, goats, peasants and washerwomen fill the shadowy foreground, and wine stores line the river where the ships lie. Diderot thought the dusk too dark.
“À demain, lorsque le soleil sera levé.”
The vessels Shipping moored on the Adour at Bayonne below riverside wine stores; Vernet gave the port's river and sea trade its own companion view. The vessels are unnamed.
Sources Louvre · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Adour river craft: chaland, galupe, chalibardon, halo, courau, tilhole and pinasse Unnamed
View of Bayonne, taken from the Allée de Boufflers near the Porte de Mousserole (Vue de Bayonne, prise de l'allée des Boufflers, près de la porte de Mousserole), 1761
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 8304), on deposit at the Musée national de la Marine, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
The second of Vernet's two views of Bayonne, painted for Louis XV's series of the Ports of France, sets out the working life of the port. Seen at sunset from the left bank of the Adour, the harbour is full of ships laid up, careened and on the stocks, and the local river craft are set down with care: the chaland, galupe, chalibardon, halo, courau, tilhole and pinasse. In the left foreground, a group of figures brings the daily life of the riverside into the scene. Diderot admired the labour and the variety, but felt the evening light did the picture no favours.
“La chute du jour a rembruni et obscurci tous les objets.”
The vessels The chaland, galupe, chalibardon, halo, courau, tilhole and pinasse were the traditional river and estuary boats of the Adour at Bayonne; the ships laid up and building in the yards are not named.
Sources Louvre · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Merchant ships in the Old Port of La Rochelle Unnamed
View of the Port of La Rochelle, taken from the Petite Rive (Vue du port de La Rochelle, prise de la petite Rive), 1762
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 8305), on deposit at the Musée national de la Marine, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
Signed 'Peint à La Rochelle, par J. Vernet, en 1762', this view of the Old Port was the one Diderot loved. At the Salon of 1763 he called it far more piquant than Vernet's Rochefort, praised the sky, the transparent water and the little groups of figures true to the place, and said that viewed through a spyglass that hid the frame you would forget you were looking at paint. The harbour it records was a trading port whose prosperity, as the city's own history recalls, rested in part on the slave trade.
“Le Port de la Rochelle est infiniment plus piquant. Voilà ce qu'on peut appeler un ciel ; voilà des eaux transparentes”
The vessels In the eighteenth century the Old Port of La Rochelle was a busy Atlantic trading harbour; in 1784 thirteen slaving expeditions sailed from it, fewer only than from Nantes and Le Havre. The ships in the view are not named.
Sources Louvre · fr.wikisource.org · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
British ship of the line in the Bay of Baiae Unnamed
Coast Scene with a British Man of War, 1766
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted after Vernet had settled in Paris, for an unidentified English buyer, this is his Mediterranean coast tailored for a British eye. The Bay of Baiae off the coast of Naples opens in soft light, with the island of Procida in the distance and a round tower on the point. Fishermen and their families gather on the rocks by a beached boat. On the right, sails set and a long pennant streaming, a Royal Navy ship of the line glides in with her ensign at the stern, the flag of the nation whose collectors prized such views.
The vessels An unnamed ship of the line of Britain's Royal Navy, shown in the Bay of Baiae off the Kingdom of Naples.
Sources Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Hindostan (East Indiaman, 1789) Named ship
Towing the East Indiaman 'Hindustan', late 18th century
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3406)
Medium Oil on canvas
One of five paintings Luny made of the Hindostan, this one belongs to her most famous voyage: she left Torbay on 1 October 1792 as part of Lord Macartney's trading embassy to the Chinese emperor and did not return until September 1794. The embassy achieved little, and the ship herself, sold to the navy in 1795, would be burnt by accident in Rosas Bay in 1804. The museum also holds her log book and papers on the salvage of the wreck, and a telescope Macartney presented to the emperor, so the voyage survives in objects and words as well as paint.
The real ship Built at Barnard's yard in 1789 on the bottom of the Nassau, the 1,248-ton Hindostan carried part of the Macartney embassy to China, was sold to the government in 1795 as a fourth-rate, and was destroyed by accidental fire in Rosas Bay on 2 April 1804.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
York (East Indiaman, 1773) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'York' and Other Vessels, 1788
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3735)
Medium Oil on canvas
The York lies at the centre of the picture among several other vessels, off a low coast that may be Madras, with the buildings of Fort St George perhaps shown at the far right. Launched in 1773, she made five voyages for the East India Company, calling at Madras in July 1780 and July 1783, and Luny painted her in 1788, after the last of them. The Company was one of Luny's great patrons: he painted many pictures for its officers, sold ship portraits through the frame maker Thomas Merle near East India House, and was even invited aboard Company ships for special occasions.
The real ship Launched in 1773, the York made five voyages for the East India Company between 1773 and 1787, calling at Madras in July 1780 and in 1783.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Hindostan (East Indiaman, 1789) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'Hindustan' off an Eastern coast, c. 1793
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3404)
Medium Oil on canvas
Of Luny's five pictures of the Hindostan, this is the gentlest: a scene bathed in golden light, with the ship and another vessel at anchor off the coast of China, the Hindostan probably drying her sails while a ship's boat pulls away and Chinese junks move across the water. The pictures commemorate her first voyage for the East India Company, to China in 1790 to 1791 under Captain William Mackintosh. The museum points out that this one dates from before Luny's own service in the Royal Navy, so the Eastern scene must have been painted from imagination.
“A scene bathed in golden light”
The real ship Launched at Deptford in 1789, the Hindostan made her first China voyage under Captain William Mackintosh in 1790 to 1791, then carried part of Lord Macartney's embassy in 1792. Sold to the Navy in 1795, she was burnt by accident in Rosas Bay on 2 April 1804.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
General Goddard (East Indiaman, 1781) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'General Goddard' Capturing Dutch East Indiamen, June 1795, late 18th to early 19th century
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0479)
Medium Oil on canvas
Here a merchant ship turns captor. Off St Helena on 11 June 1795, homeward bound during the war with France, the Company's General Goddard, with the Company packet Swallow and the warship Sceptre, took part in an action that ended in the capture of nine Dutch East Indiamen. It is a reminder that an Indiaman carried guns for a reason. The ship had a proud place in the Company's history: in 1788 she became the first vessel part-owned by Robert Wigram, future owner of Blackwall Yard. One of her officers, Henry Upton, went aboard the prize Dordwyk as prize master, and his commonplace book survives in the same museum.
The real ship Built by Randall, Brent and Sons in 1781 on the bottom of the Royal George, the 755-ton General Goddard was owned by William Money and in 1795 commanded by William Taylor Money; her convoy reached its moorings between 16 and 19 October 1795.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Merchant ships · Painting
Hindostan (East Indiaman, 1789) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'Hindustan' in a breeze in the East Indies, late 18th to early 19th century
Artist Thomas Luny (1759 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3405)
Medium Oil on canvas
Luny was commissioned to paint five pictures of the Hindostan from her first voyage to China for the East India Company, which sailed at the start of 1790 and came home in January 1791, and this is the one where she simply sails. She moves under full canvas off the China coast while a small Chinese craft, shaded by an awning, slips past with one man working both sail and tiller, and another British ship shows far off in the distance. The great Company ship and the little local boat share the same water, a meeting of two maritime worlds.
The real ship Launched by William Barnard at Deptford in November 1789, the Hindostan made a China voyage in 1790 to 1791 and then carried part of Lord Macartney's embassy to China in 1792. Bought by the Admiralty in 1795 as a fourth-rate and later a storeship, she caught fire on passage to Nelson's fleet and was run ashore and burnt in Rosas Bay on 2 April 1804.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Hindostan (East Indiaman, 1796) and the China fleet of 1802 Named ship
A fleet of East Indiamen at sea, 1803
Artist Nicholas Pocock (1740 to 1821)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1097)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pocock went to sea at seventeen and rose to command merchant ships before he took up painting in his early forties, and he paints the Company's China fleet coming home in 1802 as a sailor would see it: the commodore's ship Hindostan in the centre of eighteen sail, with the signal to wear. At the Royal Academy the title spelt out the order in full, sternmost and leewardmost ships first. It is a picture of discipline and wealth moving together across the ocean, and its calm has a shadow: on 11 January 1803, at the start of her next voyage, the Hindostan was lost on the Margate Sands.
“The Hindostan, G. Millett, commander, and senior officer of eighteen sail of East Indiamen, with the signal to wear”
The real ship The Hindostan was a large East Indiaman of 1,248 tons built in 1796 to replace an earlier ship of the name; she led the convoy home from China in 1802, eleven of whose ships are known to have reached their English moorings between 11 and 14 July. On 11 January 1803, at the start of her fourth voyage, she was lost in a heavy gale on Margate Sands with up to thirty of her crew.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Nicholas Pocock, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Warley (East Indiaman, 1795) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'Warley', 1804
Artist Robert Salmon (1775 to after 1845)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3707)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Warley is shown three times off Blackwall at sunset: broadside in the foreground, from astern with her name on her transom, and from the bow in the distance, with John Perry's Brunswick Dock across the river and the Blackwall mast house rising beside it. She was built by Perry's yard in 1795. Early in 1804, under Captain Henry Wilson, she helped Commodore Nathaniel Dance's fleet of Indiamen bluff and drive off a French squadron under Linois off Pulo Aor, and the museum suggests this may have prompted Wilson to commission the picture. It passed down in his family.
The real ship Built by Perry's yard at Blackwall in 1795, the 1,475-ton Warley was one of the larger East India Company ships; she made nine voyages to the East between 1796 and 1816, most of them direct to China, took part in Dance's action off Pulo Aor in 1804, and was sold for breaking up in 1816.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Merchant ships · Painting
Merchant ships at the Chartrons quays of Bordeaux Unnamed
View of Part of the Port and Quays of Bordeaux called the Chartrons and Bacalan (Vue d'une partie du port et des quais de Bordeaux dits des Chartrons et de Bacalan), 1804 to 1806
Artist Pierre Lacour (1745 to 1814)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux (Bx E 682, deposit of the Musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design)
Medium Oil on canvas
On a canvas more than three metres wide, the Bordeaux painter Pierre Lacour looks along the Chartrons and Bacalan quays at the start of the nineteenth century. The view centres on the Hôtel Fenwick, built for the American merchant Joseph Fenwick, whose consulate there was the first United States consulate in the world, and the whole waterfront hums with activity. Lacour put his own family into the crowd: the girl with a parasol in the foreground is his daughter, the man she speaks to is Lacour himself, and his son leans on the rail beside them.
The vessels Between 1795 and 1807 more than 2,000 American ships came to Bordeaux, their main destination while the British blockaded the Channel ports. The ships at the quays are not named.
Sources Wikipedia (FR)
Merchant ships · Painting
Ganges and Earl Saint Vincent (East Indiamen) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'Saint Vincent' saving the crew of the East Indiaman 'Ganges', 29 May 1807
Artist William John Huggins (1781 to 1845)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3622)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two Company ships homeward bound meet off the Cape, one sinking, one saving. The Ganges, returning from China on her fourth voyage under Captain T. Talbot Harrington, was going down on 29 May 1807 at latitude 38 degrees south, and the smaller Earl Saint Vincent, returning from Bombay under Captain Charles Jones, took off her crew. The Ganges had a proud history, having taken a prominent part in Commodore Dance's action against Linois's squadron in 1804. Details of the rescue were published the following year in Thomas Tegg's account of shipwrecks.
The real ship The 1,200-ton Ganges was built at Wells's Yard and entered Company service in 1796, making four voyages before she sank off the Cape on 29 May 1807 under Captain T. Talbot Harrington. The 818-ton Earl Saint Vincent, under Captain Charles Jones, reached English waters on 10 September 1807.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Armed mail packet in the Mersey Unnamed
A packet off Liverpool, 1809
Artist Robert Salmon (1775 to after 1845)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1862)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted when Salmon was living in Liverpool, this early work shows a small, heavily armed ship twice, making sail in the foreground and again from astern in the distance, with the town's buildings drawn with care across the Mersey. She looks like a frigate, but her pennant is the one flown by mail packets, and she is signalling for a pilot; a pilot cutter on the left is already responding. Some have wondered whether she was a privateer. The fins of fish in the foreground nod to the Dutch masters, but the seamanship is Salmon's own and first-hand.
The vessels Armed packets carried mail and passengers on scheduled routes during the Napoleonic wars; this ship is unidentified, and the museum notes she may have been a privateer.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
American merchant ship and the Margate packet Duke of Kent Named ship
An American Ship in Distress, 1811
Artist C. John M. Whichelo
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1210)
Medium Oil on canvas
An American ship runs in towards Margate before an easterly gale, her fore topgallant mast snapped off, still carrying too much sail, her flag flown upside down in distress. Crossing hazardously close under her bows is the little cutter Duke of Kent, one of the regular passenger smacks between London and Margate, her name on her mainsail, while a pilot lugger with five men pitches out to help and the jetty fills with watchers. The museum notes the date, the year before the United States declared war on Britain, and wonders whether the artist meant a second reading.
“she appears dangerously over-canvassed for her situation, as she runs in before a easterly gale”
The real ship The Duke of Kent was one of the regular passenger cutters serving Margate from London; the American ship is unidentified.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: C. John M. Whichelo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Drawing
A French galley at Marseille Unnamed
French Galley at Marseilles, 1816
Artist Ange-Joseph Antoine Roux (1765 to 1835)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAG9744, Caird Collection)
Medium Watercolour
The Roux family kept a hydrographer's shop on the Old Port of Marseille, selling charts and compass roses to sea captains, and from that counter grew a dynasty of ship portrait painters whose work spanned a century. Antoine Roux, son of the King's hydrographer Joseph Roux, learned to draw the many ships lying in the harbour, and he has sometimes been called the inventor of the ship portrait in France. This signed watercolour of 1816 records a French galley at Marseille, the long oared warship of the Mediterranean, set down with the same care the family gave to its charts.
“The family hydrographic business included marine pictures as an adjunct”
The vessels An unnamed French galley, the oared warship of the Mediterranean, drawn at Marseille in 1816.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Ange-Joseph Antoine Roux, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Thames (East Indiaman) Named ship
On board an Indiaman (Deck scene in an Indiaman), early 19th century
Artist Attributed to Captain Robert Williams
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1080)
Medium Oil on canvas
Rare among Indiaman pictures, this one takes us aboard. The donor said it was painted by a captain of an East Indiaman called Williams around the time of Trafalgar, which would make him Robert Williams of the Thames on her voyage to Bombay and China in 1802 to 1803. If so, it is a sea officer's own view of his deck, painted from the inside of the life most ship portraits only show from a distance. The attribution cannot be proved, and that uncertainty is part of its charm.
“a captain of an East Indiaman called Williams about the time of Trafalgar”
The real ship The 1,200-ton Thames, owned by Abel Chapman, was built on the bottom of the Winterton of 1795 and remained in East India Company service until 1813, completing eight voyages to the East.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Attributed to Captain Robert Williams, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Atlas (East Indiaman, 1812) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'Atlas', 1826
Artist William John Huggins (1781 to 1845)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3214)
Medium Oil on canvas marouflaged onto Sundaela board
Huggins shows the Atlas off Dover in 1826, probably at the end of her seventh voyage to Madras and China. Behind the calm portrait lies the private economy of the Company's ships. Her captain, Charles Otway Mayne, grew rich on his perquisites, and in 1817 his surgeon and second mate complained at Canton that he had taken all the extra private cargo space officers were allowed; they won. The ship herself went for breaking in 1831 for only 4,100 pounds, much of it probably for her furnishings. A portrait of a ship is also a portrait of a business.
The real ship Built in 1812 at Paul's Yard near Hull for managing owner James Staniforth, she sailed for India in 1813 and made ten voyages to Madras, Bengal and China until 1830, then was sold for breaking in May 1831.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Merchant ships off the Custom House, Greenock Unnamed
The Custom House at Greenock, Scotland, 1828
Artist Robert Salmon (1775 to after 1845)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1979.488)
Medium Oil on wood
Salmon had lived in Greenock, then Scotland's oldest and most important shipbuilding town, and the Met believes he painted this view of it probably just after he arrived in America in 1828. A tempest is rising: in the museum's words, the cyclonic cloud formation, the eerie light and the tilting ships are pitted against the solid Doric Custom House that William Burn built in 1818. Trade and weather meet in one frame, the permanence of the building set against the sea that every ship in its shadow had to face.
“the cyclonic cloud formation, the eerie light, and the tilting ships”
The vessels The vessels are unnamed merchant ships off the Custom House at Greenock on the Clyde.
Merchant ships · Painting
Earl of Balcarres (East Indiaman, 1815) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'Earl of Balcarres' off the coast of China, 1828
Artist William John Huggins (1781 to 1845)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3301)
Medium Painting
The Earl of Balcarres was a ship of India as much as of London: built for the East India Company at Bombay in 1815 of Malabar teak, whose natural oils kept her watertight and resisted the teredo worm. Huggins paints her off the China coast on her voyage of 1828 to 1829 to Bengal and China under Captain Bryan Broughton, and it was Broughton's family who later gave the picture to the museum. It is the portrait of a working command, a ship of 1,417 tons with twenty-six guns and 130 men.
The real ship Built for the East India Company at Bombay in 1815 of Malabar teak, 1,417 tons with 26 guns and a crew of 130, she made nine voyages for the Company until 1833 and was sold in September 1834 to Thomas A. Shutter for 10,700 pounds.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Lykkens Prøve Named ship
A Danish Sloop Running before the Wind (Un sloop danois allant vent arrière), 1831
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (RF 2241)
Medium Oil on canvas
Seen from the Danish shore near Kalvehave, looking towards the island of Møn, the sloop Lykkens Prøve runs before the wind, her name legible on the stern, her boat in her wake and a few passengers on deck. On the quarterdeck the skipper raises his top hat to salute the viewer, a charming human touch in Eckersberg's cool, exact seascape. At least five more sails dot the horizon, the nearest also flying the Danish flag. The picture came to the Louvre in 1919, a gift from a group of Danish art lovers in thanks for the release of another Eckersberg from sequestration.
The real ship Lykkens Prøve was a Danish sloop, once catalogued by the Louvre as an old Danish packet boat, shown sailing in the strait between Møn and Zealand with passengers aboard.
Sources Louvre · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Christianshavn Named ship
The Frigate Christianshavn of the Danish Asiatic Company off Table Mountain (Christianshavn ved Taffelbjerget), c. 1831
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Sønderborg Castle, Sønderborg
Medium Oil on canvas
A Danish Asiatic Company ship under sail off the Cape of Good Hope, Table Mountain behind her. Eckersberg never saw the Cape; he based the picture on a recent work by another artist, bringing to it his own knowledge of rig and hull. The ship had a remarkable life: built as a British East Indiaman, she was taken by the French in 1798 and sold to Denmark in 1800 to sail for the Asiatic Company, which after 1772 held the Danish monopoly of the China trade. The painting is a small record of Denmark's long voyages east.
The real ship Originally a British East Indiaman, captured by the French in 1798 and sold to Denmark in 1800, she sailed for the Danish Asiatic Company, which held the Danish monopoly of the China trade after 1772.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (DA)
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
HDMS Dronning Marie Named ship
The 84 Gun Danish Warship "Dronning Marie" in the Sound (Et dansk orlogsskib "Dronning Marie" på 84 kanoner under sejl i Sundet), 1834
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS255)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eckersberg asked the harbour master at Nyholm for leave to join Dronning Marie on her maiden voyage around Zealand in 1834. He came aboard on 5 July with his friend Emil Normann, and two days later, in the Bay of Sejrø, the two painters went off in a rowing boat to paint the ship under sail in the Great Belt. His portrait of her dates from that same year: a new Danish ship of the line studied from the water by a painter who had taken the trouble to go to sea with her. Ten years earlier he had drawn her on the stocks at Nyholm.
The real ship Built at Nyholm to a design by Andreas Schifter, launched in 1824 and completed in 1827, 84 guns and 771 men. She grounded off Sprogø in 1834, carried Crown Prince Frederik to Iceland and the Faroes the same year, became a 60-gun frigate in 1849 and an accommodation ship in 1858; decommissioned in 1862.
Sources SMK · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Print
England (New York packet ship) Named ship
First class New York packet ship England, Captn B. L. Waite, inward bound off Point Lynas, making signal for a Pilot, 1834
Artist After Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882); published by Rudolph Ackermann, lithographed by Day and Haghe
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH0554)
Medium Coloured lithograph
The long title tells the whole story of a crossing's end. The first-class New York packet England, Captain B. L. Waite, is inward bound off Point Lynas on Anglesey and is making the signal for a pilot to take her in. The print was published in 1834 by Rudolph Ackermann and lithographed by Day and Haghe after Samuel Walters, then a young painter who had begun exhibiting in Liverpool only four years before, and it was sold hand-coloured. It is the Atlantic packet trade seen at its most hopeful moment, land in sight and the voyage nearly done.
The real ship The England was a first-class sailing packet in the New York trade, recorded by the museum as a ship of 1834 under Captain B. L. Waite.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Drawing
Phenix Named ship
Phenix, Captain Ch. Vidal (Phenix Capne Ch. Vidal), 1834
Artist Mathieu-Antoine Roux (1799 to 1872)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH0555)
Medium Watercolour on board
This is the classic Marseille ship portrait from the Roux family, hydrographers on the Old Port who painted ships for their captain clients. Mathieu-Antoine Roux, son of Antoine, shows the three-masted barque Phenix from the starboard quarter, the French flag at her stern gaff and pennants at her mastheads, a lighthouse in the distance and two small sailing vessels to the right. The inscription names her master, Captain Vidal, as proudly as the ship herself.
The real ship The Phenix was a French three-masted merchant barque, recorded here in 1834 under Captain Ch. Vidal; the museum records nothing further of her career.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia (FR)
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Najaden and Bellona Named ship
The Corvette Najaden Waiting in the Sound for the Frigate Bellona (Korvetten Najaden, som i Sundet venter fregatten Bellona), 1835
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it The Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen (inv. 120)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eckersberg painted the corvette Najaden again and again: the Hirschsprung Collection and Nivaagaard each hold a portrait of her under sail, and the Statens Museum for Kunst has his study of her starboard battery and deck. Here she waits in the Sound for the frigate Bellona, a quiet naval rendezvous rather than a battle. It is the work of a painter who had been granted free access to the Copenhagen naval station at Holmen by the Admiralty in 1819.
The real ship The corvette Najaden served the Danish navy in the West Indies in 1824 to 1825, when piracy was rife; with a few of her sailors aboard the small schooner Vigilant, the young officer Carl Irminger boarded the pirate ship Adolpho between Puerto Rico and Culebra. Little is recorded of the frigate Bellona.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia (DA) · Wikipedia
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Skjold Named ship
The Danish Ship of the Line Skjold under Sail (Orlogsskibet Skjold under Sejl), 1836
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, 2007)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1836 the ship of the line Skjold went on a summer cruise in the North Sea and the Baltic under Anthonius Krieger, and in the same year Eckersberg painted her portrait under sail. The picture stayed with the painter until his death: it was sold at his estate auction in 1853, later belonged to the landowner J. C. Hauberg, and reappeared at auction in Copenhagen in 2007. It shows the Danish navy at peace, painted by an artist who had been given free access to the naval station at Holmen.
The real ship Skjold was a ship of the line of the Royal Danish Navy; in 1836 she cruised the North Sea and the Baltic under Anthonius Krieger.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (DA) · Wikipedia
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Asia (East Indiaman, 1811) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'Asia', 1836
Artist William John Huggins (1781 to 1845)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3209)
Medium Oil on canvas
Huggins had sailed to Bombay and China on the East Indiaman Perseverance in 1812 to 1814 before setting up as a painter near the Company's London headquarters in Leadenhall Street, and he shows the Asia off Hong Kong in starboard broadside, red ensign and distinguishing flags flying, Chinese junks to left and right. The picture belonged to Thomas Gardiner, her purser on her tenth voyage of 1831 to 1832, and passed to his family. Critics found Huggins weak in colouring and composition, but William IV valued his correctness, and it is that exactness which makes this portrait of an Indiaman near the end of her career a record worth having.
“esteemed his work rather for its correctness than its art”
The real ship Built in 1811, the Asia made ten voyages for the East India Company between 1811 and 1832, the first leaving Portsmouth on 10 March 1812. Her last, in 1831 to 1832, took her to Madras, Bengal and China.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Print
USS Constitution (1797), Old Ironsides Named ship
U.S. Frigate Constitution, 1838 to 1856
Artist Nathaniel Currier (1813 to 1888), lithographer and publisher
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (67.618.2)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Before Currier and Ives there was Nathaniel Currier alone, and one of the heroes of his prints was the frigate Americans called Old Ironsides. The Met's print shows her sailing to the right under the American flag, crew visible on deck and climbing the mast, a simple popular portrait for the walls of homes and offices. Her fame came from the War of 1812, when she captured HMS Guerriere and four other British warships, and public affection repeatedly saved her from being scrapped.
The real ship Designed by Joshua Humphreys and built at Edmund Hartt's shipyard in Boston, Constitution was launched in 1797, one of the six original frigates of the Naval Act of 1794. She served in the Quasi-War and the First Barbary War, captured Guerriere, Java, Pictou, Cyane and Levant in the War of 1812, circled the world in the 1840s and remains in commission as the oldest naval vessel still afloat.
Merchant ships · Painting
Joseph Cunard (barque) Named ship
The barque Joseph Cunard, 1839
Artist Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3430)
Medium Oil on canvas
This is the pierhead portrait at its most exact. Walters shows the new barque on her delivery voyage to Liverpool, about to pass the Skerries lighthouse off Anglesey, with every flag set down so it can be read: the Union flag with a white border at the fore, the J.P.S. house flag of her owners Smith and Co. of Liverpool at the main, her signal number from Marryat's code of 1817 at the mizzen and the red ensign at the gaff. Walters, one of the best-known painters of the Liverpool school, signed and dated it in red in the corner.
The real ship A British merchant barque owned by Smith and Co. of Liverpool and listed in Lloyd's Register from 1841 onwards; the painting shows her delivery voyage to Liverpool in 1839.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Owen Glendower (Blackwall frigate, 1839) Named ship
The Blackwall frigate 'Owen Glendower' at anchor off a coastline, 1839
Artist G. W. Butland
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3532)
Medium Oil on canvas
The picture was long called the Owen Glendower coming into harbour, but she is in fact at anchor off the English south coast, probably just east of Hastings, with her sails spread to dry. Butland signed and dated it 1839, the year Green's built her; she was first registered for voyages between London and Madras and flies the early house flag of their Blackwall line at her main truck. The museum also holds a model of her and a print by T. G. Dutton of her entering Calcutta, so she can be followed from the yard to India.
“probably just east of Hastings if the ruins on the cliff are indicative”
The real ship Built by Green's at Blackwall in 1839, the 852-ton Indiaman was first registered for London to Madras voyages. Like her sisters Vernon and Earl of Hardwick she was designed with auxiliary paddles; hers were removed before her first voyage, and theirs later, after they proved unsuccessful.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Merchant ships · Painting
Triton (East Indiaman) Named ship
The East Indiaman 'Triton', 1839
Artist William John Huggins (1781 to 1845)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3674)
Medium Oil on canvas
Huggins shows the Triton broadside on under full sail off the coast of China, and then adds a touch that turns a portrait into a meeting: a small local junk in the foreground, the figures aboard looking up at the great ship passing. For two hundred years East Indiamen carried the trade between Britain and India, and the museum notes that ships like the Triton were often luxuriously fitted and much more commodious than Royal Navy ships. Huggins, who had sailed to China on an Indiaman himself, signed and dated the canvas in 1839.
The real ship The Triton, recorded by the museum as a ship of 1787, was an East India Company merchant ship trading to the East.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
A privateer schooner and a frigate Unnamed
A Privateer Schooner Outsailing a Pursuing Frigate (En kaperskonnert, som undløber en forfølgende fregat), 1845
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS3767)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eckersberg had a passion for ships, and at 56 he sailed the Skagerrak, the Kattegat, the North Sea and as far as the English Channel; after that his marine paintings, once calm, paid far more attention to wind and waves. This canvas of 1845 belongs to those later years. A small privateer schooner is outsailing the frigate that chases her, the whole drama carried by sail and sea. The painter Wilhelm Marstrand bought it from Eckersberg on 20 September 1845, the year it was made.
The vessels A privateer schooner, a small privately armed vessel, escaping a pursuing naval frigate; neither ship is named.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (DA)
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
John W. Brewer Named ship
The Ship "John W. Brewer", c. 1845
Artist Chinese painter
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (41.14)
Medium Oil on canvas
This portrait of the John W. Brewer, a clipper built at Cohasset, Massachusetts, was painted around 1845 by an unnamed Chinese artist, and the ship and the painter together tell the story of the China trade. As the Met explains, clippers like her evolved from heavier, slower sailing vessels because of the demand for fresh tea from China, and some could make the passage from China to New York in under seventy-five days. An American hull recorded by a Chinese brush: the picture is itself a product of the trade that shaped the ship.
“Clipper ships such as this evolved from heavier, slower sailing vessels in response to the demand for fresh tea from China”
The real ship The John W. Brewer was a clipper built at Cohasset, Massachusetts, in the era of the American China tea trade.
Sources The Met
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Gundalow, packet sloop, brig and transatlantic packet ships in Boston Harbor Unnamed
Harbor of Boston, with the City in the Distance, c. 1846 to 1847
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it The Cleveland Museum of Art (2004.35)
Medium Oil on canvas
One of Lane's first oil views of Boston in which the skyline becomes part of the atmosphere rather than a backdrop, the city dissolving into sunset mist as seen from Governor's Island. Unusually, the great merchant ships are pushed to the background and the humblest craft of all, a gundalow, takes the foreground, catching the eye and leading it round the harbour. Infrared study shows Lane redrew its helmsman and an oarsman. Around it a brig dries her sails and passes cargo to a packet sloop, and a deep-laden topsail schooner heads out to sea.
The vessels The gundalow was a flat-bottomed river and harbour barge of New England; packet sloops distributed cargo to small coastal towns; the large ships in the distance carry the painted false gunports then fashionable in the transatlantic packet trade.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · Cleveland Museum of Art
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Magnolia (packet ship) Named ship
The ship Magnolia, c. 1847 to 1882
Artist Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3466)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1847 the Magnolia was a ship of the St George line of packets, sailing between New York and Liverpool with Captain Edward Gray as master, and Samuel Walters painted her portrait. Walters was born in London, settled in Liverpool, where he was well known, and his work was popular in North America too, so a packet like this one, belonging to both ends of the Atlantic crossing, was exactly his kind of subject. The canvas is a straightforward ship portrait, made to record one vessel of the busy transatlantic packet trade.
“The ‘Magnolia’ was a ship in the St. George line of packet ships in 1847 operating between New York and Liverpool”
The real ship The Magnolia was a packet ship of the St George Line running between New York and Liverpool in 1847, commanded by Captain Edward Gray.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
American frigate traditionally identified as USS Constitution (probably a 32-gun frigate) Unnamed
The "Constitution" in Boston Harbor, c. 1848 to 1849
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga (1968.4)
Medium Oil on canvas mounted on panel
For generations this was admired as a portrait of Old Ironsides at home in Boston, seen from Governor's Island with the city behind. Close study by the Lane catalogue tells a different story: the warship shows twelve gunports on her gun deck where Constitution had sixteen, so she is more likely a 32-gun frigate built between the War of 1812 and the early 1840s. Around her Lane gathers the everyday traffic of the port, a New England boat, a sloop, two merchant brigs, a yawl boat, a topsail schooner and a pinky, so that the navy's ship rides among the working craft of the harbour.
The vessels USS Constitution was rated a 44-gun frigate; the vessel painted here, with smaller armament and solid bulwarks on her spar deck, fits the 32-gun frigate rating of American ships built between 1812 and the early 1840s. Her exact identity is unknown.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, where the original is kept. Photo: JJonahJackalope, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Shipping on the Pearl River before the Canton factories Unnamed
Shipping off Canton, c. 1849 to 1856
Artist Chinese School and British School, 19th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1777)
Medium Oil on canvas
This is the world that the tea clippers raced to reach. Across the still Pearl River stand the foreign factories of Canton, flying the flags of Denmark, Britain and the United States, the trading posts European merchants were not allowed to leave. On the water every kind of craft gathers, from small junks to large traders and a pair of pleasure yachts, around a steamer probably of the Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company. The painting fuses Western topography with Chinese conventions, down to a distant mountain, and a serene stillness hangs over the river of the tea trade.
“a serene stillness pervades the scene”
The vessels The Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company, founded on 19 October 1848, ran small London-built steamers between Hong Kong and Canton from spring 1849; around them worked the junks and sailing ships of the tea trade.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Chinese School and British School, 19th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Columbia (Black Ball Line packet) Named ship
The Black Ball Line ship Columbia, 19th century
Artist British School, 19th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3265)
Medium Oil on board
The Black Ball Line began in 1817, when a group of New York Quaker merchants headed by Jeremiah Thompson started the first scheduled transatlantic service, four packet ships running between Liverpool and New York. The line took its name from its flag, a black ball on red, which found its way into sea shanties such as Blow the Man Down and Hurrah for the Black Ball Line. The Columbia, built in New York by William H. Webb, carried passengers for the line. From 1851 a Liverpool firm, James Baines and Co., used the same name and flag in direct competition for about twenty years.
The real ship Built in New York by William H. Webb, recorded by the museum as a ship of 1846, the Columbia was a passenger packet of the Black Ball Line, the transatlantic service founded in 1817.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: British School, 19th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Merchant ships at anchor in Boston Harbor at sunset Unnamed
Boston Harbor, Sunset, 1850 to 1855
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Los Angeles County Museum of Art (AC1993.229.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Pink and gold light fills Boston's harbour, LACMA writes, as great merchant ships align themselves along a corridor of reflected sun. The viewpoint is low, as if from a small boat just behind two men rowing into the light, so the hulls loom and the spars soar above us. LACMA notes that Lane softens the harsh, often dangerous working port, while his choice of subject still recalls New England's global trades. The Lane catalogue calls this picture and its twin at Boston poems of stillness, silence and light.
“Pink and gold light suffuse this view of Boston's busy harbor.”
The vessels Full-rigged merchant and packet ships, brigs and small craft at anchor in Boston Harbor; Lane's first Boston patrons were all involved in the maritime trades. The ships are not named.
Sources collections.lacma.org · fitzhenrylaneonline.org
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Unidentified American merchant ship working to windward in a gale Unnamed
Close Hauled in a Gale, c. 1850
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Peabody Essex Museum, Salem (M18980)
Medium Oil
An unnamed merchant ship claws to windward on the starboard tack as a storm abates, while another vessel runs before the wind on the horizon. Lane paints her sail plan with near-photographic accuracy: topsails reefed, crossjack and topgallants furled, royals and their yards sent down, only the inner jib and jib set forward, every sail balanced to ease the helm. The Lane catalogue wonders why he lavished such detail on a ship with no name and no house flag, and for whom. The answer is lost, but the picture reads as a hymn to seamanship.
“Lane's attention to detail verges on photographic, leading to the question: why would he depict a nameless ship in such detail, and for whom?”
The vessels The ship belongs to the class of large merchant ships called ocean carriers or ocean freighters, built for capacity with moderate speed; their construction stopped with the Panic of 1857 and resumed after the Civil War, when Maine yards made them famous as down easters.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, where the original is kept. Photo: Fletcher6, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Three-masted clipper, possibly the Nightingale (1851) Unnamed
New England Harbor at Sunrise, c. 1850
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts (gift of Judge Lawrence Brooks, 1970)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two smartly dressed seamen sit deep in conversation on an overturned dory at dawn, while a three-masted clipper with elaborate headrails, mouldings and a small female figurehead lies beside the pier. The Lane scholar Erik Ronnberg has proposed that the harbour is Portsmouth, New Hampshire, rather than Gloucester, and that the old-fashioned beakhead resembles that of the Nightingale, built there in 1851. Infrared images show that Lane barely changed his pencil drawing of the vessels, while he drew and redrew the figures. The result lifts ordinary sailors and a merchant ship to the dignity of history painting, in the optimistic light of early morning.
The vessels The Nightingale was a clipper built by Samuel Hanscom at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and launched in June 1851; she was towed to Boston in July 1851 while her builder's finances were settled and she was sold to a Boston firm.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Princess Amelia of Liverpool Named ship
The packet 'Princess Amelia', 19th century
Artist British School, 19th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3562)
Medium Oil on canvas
Not every ship portrait came from a master. This one, which the museum calls primitive and highly stylised, shows the Princess Amelia of Liverpool broadside on under full sail, her name carried across the top of the canvas in a banner, figures at work on her deck, a tower on the distant shore and a small single-masted boat to the right. What it lacks in finish it makes up in directness: the ship, her name and her crew, set down plainly by an unknown hand. A ship of this name was wrecked off Moelfre, on Anglesey, in 1868.
“A primitive and highly stylised portrait of the ‘Princess Amelia’ of Liverpool”
The real ship The Princess Amelia of Liverpool, recorded by the museum as a ship of 1799; a ship of the same name was wrecked off the coast of Moelfre in 1868.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: British School, 19th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Caduceus (ship, 1854) Named ship
The ship Caduceus off Hong Kong, 19th century
Artist Chinese School, 19th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3763)
Medium Oil on canvas on board
The Caduceus is shown off Hong Kong in a ship portrait that the museum thinks is possibly by a Chinese artist. Western-style oil paintings made in China in the nineteenth century were mostly the work of anonymous craftsmen and were never regarded as high art by Chinese literati; a few well-known workshops in Canton, Hong Kong and Shanghai worked for Western customers, and when painters signed at all, they signed in English. Here that export trade turns its eye on a Western merchant ship at the colony.
The real ship The Caduceus, recorded by the museum as a ship of 1854, portrayed off Hong Kong.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Chinese School, 19th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Merchant barque breaking out of the ice, with a coasting schooner and two fishing schooners Unnamed
Ships in Ice off Ten Pound Island, Gloucester, 1850s
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (48.447)
Medium Oil on canvas
Gloucester Harbor seldom froze, but in one hard winter of the 1850s the ice spread across much of it, and Lane shows a merchant barque breaking her way out. Men with picks and hammers crack the ice ahead of her, provisions arrive by sled, and a small schooner secured alongside heels under sail to bear down on the ice and help it break. The Lane catalogue sees a quiet irony in the scene: a merchant barque of antiquated design flanked by two sleek new fishing schooners, just as Gloucester's foreign trade was declining and its fishing industry was reviving.
“an unintended mix of promise and foreboding on Lane's part, but there it is.”
The vessels A merchant barque of old-fashioned design, a small coasting schooner lashed alongside to help break the ice, and two fishing schooners whose fine hulls show the influence of the new sharpshooter and clipper schooners; none are named.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · MFA Boston
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Thermopylae Named ship
The tea clipper 'Thermopylae', 19th century
Artist F. I. Sorenson
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3658)
Medium Oil on board
The painter has inscribed it simply 'The Famous Tea-Clipper Thermopylae', and the ship needs no more. She sails broadside on under full canvas, flying the house flag of the Aberdeen White Star Line, whose fleet was known for style and for its glistening green livery. Thermopylae was the Cutty Sark's great rival: in the tea race of 1872 the Cutty Sark was 400 miles ahead when she lost her rudder off the Cape of Good Hope, and Thermopylae reached London seven days before her. This is a working portrait of a champion.
“The Famous Tea-Clipper Thermopylae”
The real ship Designed by Bernard Waymouth and built by Walter Hood and Co. of Aberdeen for George Thompson's Aberdeen White Star Line, she was launched in 1868 and reached Melbourne on her maiden voyage in a record 63 days. After the tea and Australian wool trades she passed to Canadian owners and then to Portugal, and in 1907 she was towed out to sea off the Tagus and sunk by torpedo.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Merchant ships · Painting
Three-masted merchant ship and two schooners in a heavy sea Unnamed
Three Master and Lumber Schooners in Heavy Seas, early 1850s
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester (642.13a)
Medium Oil on canvas
A three-masted merchant ship lifts through a heavy sea as the skies begin to clear, two smaller schooners labouring nearby. There is no disaster here, as the catalogue says, just everyday business on a rough sea, yet Lane lets a small drama begin: the lower sheet of the fore topsail has broken free and is starting to flap, and the crew will soon have to deal with it. In a related painting of 1856 the topsail has blown loose and men are already aloft. The red anchor at the bow is Lane's touch of colour and also true to the red lead primer used on ships' ironwork.
The vessels The ship is an unidentified three-masted merchant vessel of the 1850s; of the two smaller vessels, one is a traditionally rigged schooner and the other carries a square topsail.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Shipping in the Bocca Tigris, including a naval sloop Unnamed
A view into the Bocca Tigris, at the entrance to the Pearl River, China, mid-19th century
Artist Chinese School, 19th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1783)
Medium Oil on canvas
Every ship bound for Canton passed through the Bocca Tigris, the Tiger's Mouth, where the forts of Annanghoy and South Wantong faced each other across a channel only 750 yards wide. An unidentified Chinese artist shows the lower reach of the river crowded with local and European shipping, a western ship coming down from Canton in the distance, and in the foreground a British vessel, perhaps a Royal Navy sloop of about 18 guns, flying the blue peter as she prepares to sail. Long mislabelled as shipping off Hong Kong, the view was identified by comparison with a very similar picture of about 1860 in the Hong Kong Museum of Art.
“the forts forming the ‘teeth’ of the ‘tiger's mouth’”
The vessels The shipping is unnamed: Chinese junks and European vessels in the lower Pearl River, including a British ship that may be a Royal Navy sloop of about 18 guns; after the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 European traders in these waters needed naval protection from pirates.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
A French ship leaving the harbour of Ancona Unnamed
View of the Port of Ancona (Vue du Port d'Ancone), mid-19th century
Artist After Ambroise-Louis Garneray (1783 to 1857)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAI0002)
Medium Aquatint, proof before letters
Garneray had been a corsair under Surcouf and spent years in British prison hulks before he became a painter, and his many port views of France and the Mediterranean were published as aquatints in Paris. This one, issued by the print sellers Hocquart of the Rue Saint-Jacques, looks over the Adriatic port of Ancona from above the citadel. A French ship stands out of the harbour with the long mole behind her. Garneray exaggerated the height of the headland and old town, and the square tower seen between the ship's fore and main masts is the Arch of Trajan, then a landmark on the mole and now well inland amid reclaimed ground.
The vessels The vessel is an unnamed French sailing ship leaving the Adriatic port of Ancona.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Southern Cross (clipper, 1851) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Southern Cross" in Boston Harbor, 1851
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts (M18639)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lane painted the Southern Cross in 1851, when she had just been finished at a South Boston yard, and the picture carries all the optimism of that moment. Her owners named her after what they thought the most beautiful constellation of the southern sky, and they expected fast passages to match. The sea did not oblige: contrary winds, dismastings and a fire kept her from the quick runs they hoped for, though she was remembered for sailing from San Francisco to Hong Kong in a record thirty-two days. Lane gives us the ship before any of it, new and full of promise in her home harbour.
The real ship Built in 1851 by E. and H. O. Briggs at South Boston for Baker and Morrill of Boston, the medium clipper was captured and burned by the Confederate cruiser Florida in June 1863.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Samuel Lawrence (packet ship) Named ship
"Samuel Lawrence" (Ship Samuel Lawrence Picking up a Boston Pilot), 1851
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Peabody Essex Museum, Salem (M9218)
Medium Oil
A narrative ship portrait for readers who knew the language of flags. The blue star-studded pilot jack at the fore asks for a pilot, and a pilot schooner waits under shortened sail just astern. At the mizzen, four signal flags in the Elford code spell out the ship's number. When researchers checked them against the Boston Harbour Telegraph they first read the ship Ganges, until they realised Lane had painted the whole hoist upside down, probably copying a sketch made without marking top or bottom. The slip, as the catalogue says, adds an endearing human touch.
“In other words, Lane had painted the official hoist upside down!”
The real ship Samuel Lawrence was a packet ship; the Lane catalogue cites Duncan McLean's contemporary account of her construction in The Atlas of Boston. Her Elford signal number was 3246.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, where the original is kept. Photo: Fletcher6, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
Flying Cloud Named ship
Clipper Ship "Flying Cloud", 1852
Artist After James E. Buttersworth (1817 to 1894); drawn on stone by Eliphalet M. Brown Jr.; published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.25)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Currier issued this print to celebrate a record: in 1851 the Flying Cloud had sailed from New York round Cape Horn to San Francisco in 89 days and 21 hours, anchor to anchor. Prints like this were cheap enough for ordinary homes, and they carried Buttersworth's portrait of the ship far beyond the waterfront. Behind the image is a story the lithograph could not show: the ship's navigator was the captain's wife, Eleanor Creesy, one of the first navigators to exploit the sailing directions of Matthew Fontaine Maury. The ship later beat her own record.
The real ship Built by Donald McKay at East Boston and launched in 1851, the Flying Cloud set the New York to San Francisco record under Josiah Perkins Creesy, with Eleanor Creesy as navigator, and bettered it in 1854 with 89 days 8 hours. Later owned in Britain, she went ashore on the Beacon Island Bar at Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1874 and was burned for her iron and copper fastenings.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
Hurricane (clipper, 1851) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Hurricane" of New York, 1852
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876); published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.291)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Fanny Palmer, born in Leicester and working in New York, is credited as the artist of this portrait of the Hurricane, published by Currier in 1852. The ship was built for speed, with slender lines, tall masts and square sails, and she met her namesake early: on her first voyage to San Francisco in 1852 a squall damaged her and forced her into Rio de Janeiro for repairs. Afterwards she served chiefly in the China tea trade. The print shows her as her owners wished her seen, whole and fast.
The real ship Built in 1851 by Isaac C. Smith at Hoboken, New Jersey, the three-masted Hurricane was damaged by a squall on her first voyage to San Francisco in 1852, repaired at Rio de Janeiro, and afterwards served chiefly in the China tea trade.
Sources The Met
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
Sovereign of the Seas (clipper, 1852) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Sovereign of the Seas", 1852
Artist Eliphalet M. Brown Jr. (1816 to 1886); published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.20)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Donald McKay's Sovereign of the Seas was built in 1852 at East Boston with, in the Met's words, the largest and sharpest bow and stern of any vessel then built, 265 feet long overall as the print's own text states. Soon after her maiden voyage to San Francisco she was chartered by the Black Ball Line of Liverpool for the Australian trade, and she set a world record as the fastest sailing ship that stood for decades. Currier's firm was eager to meet the public's appetite for pictures of such ships, and prints like this were an inexpensive way to decorate a home.
“the largest and sharpest bow and stern of any vessel then built”
The real ship Built by Donald McKay at East Boston in 1852, 265 feet long, she was chartered after her maiden voyage to San Francisco by the Black Ball Line of Liverpool to carry passengers and cargo to and from Australia, and set a world speed record for a sailing ship.
Sources The Met
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Drawing
Lizzie Webber (emigrant ship) Named ship
Departure of the Lizzie Webber, the first Emigrant ship from Sunderland to Australia, 1852
Artist Poulson
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAD6452)
Medium Graphite and sepia ink
In 1852, the year Thomas Woolner sailed for Australia and Ford Madox Brown began The Last of England, a draughtsman named Poulson drew the departure of the Lizzie Webber, the first emigrant ship from Sunderland to Australia. The drawing, in graphite and sepia ink, is linked to the Illustrated London News of 14 August 1852. Emigration from England was then at a peak, with over 350,000 people leaving that year. Where Brown painted the private grief of leaving, this sheet records a port's public occasion.
The real ship The Lizzie Webber sailed from Sunderland for Australia in 1852 as the first emigrant ship from that port.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Emigrant ship leaving England Unnamed
The Last of England, 1852 to 1855
Artist Ford Madox Brown (1821 to 1893)
Where to see it Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham
Medium Oil on panel
The ship here is felt rather than seen: a rail hung with cabbages as provisions for the long voyage, a crowded deck, an umbrella glistening with sea spray, and the white cliffs of Dover disappearing behind. Brown began the picture in 1852, moved by the departure of his friend the sculptor Thomas Woolner for Australia, and he based the emigrant couple on himself and his wife Emma, a baby's small hand just visible from her cloak. He painted largely outdoors on cold days, delighted when the weather turned his hand blue, so that the chill would show in the flesh. He called it the parting scene in its fullest tragic development.
“the parting scene in its fullest tragic development”
The vessels An unnamed emigrant sailing ship of the 1850s leaving England, cabbages hung from her rail as provisions for the long voyage.
Sources Wikipedia · smarthistory.org · Fitzwilliam Museum
Image: Ford Madox Brown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Merchant ships and brig in Boston Harbor at sunset Unnamed
Boston Harbor, after 1853
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (66.339)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lane knew Boston Harbor from the lithography studios that overlooked it, and here he turns a busy commercial port into what his cataloguers call poems of stillness, silence and light. The viewer sits low on the water, as if in a small boat just behind two men rowing into the path of the sunset, so the merchant and packet ships loom up as great hulls and towers of sail, lined along a processional corridor that leads the eye to the setting sun. Nothing hurries. The steeple of the First Baptist Church, completed in 1853, stands on the skyline beside the State House dome.
“the hanging moment between day and night, between wind and calm, light and shadow”
The vessels The vessels are unnamed full-rigged merchant and packet ships and a brig in Boston Harbor in the 1850s.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where the original is kept. Photo: Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
Contest (clipper, 1852) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Contest", 1853
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876); published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.70)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Fanny Palmer drew the Contest for Currier in 1853, a year after she came from Jacob A. Westervelt's New York yard, and the print was dedicated to his son Daniel, named as her builder: a family's pride pressed into ink. The ship earned it, taking 100 days from New York to San Francisco on her first voyage and coming home in 80. She made many profitable voyages over the next decade before the Confederate raider Alabama destroyed her in 1863. The print keeps her in the brief season when the New York clippers were in their prime.
“dedicated to his son, Daniel D. Westervelt, who is identified as the builder of ‘Contest.’”
The real ship Built in 1852 at Jacob A. Westervelt's yard in New York, the Contest sailed from New York to San Francisco in 100 days and returned in 80; she was destroyed by the CSS Alabama in 1863.
Sources The Met
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
Great Republic Named ship
Clipper Ship "Great Republic", 1853
Artist After James E. Buttersworth (1817 to 1894); published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.24)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Currier published this print at the time of the launch, to record the sheer size of Donald McKay's four-masted giant: 335 feet long, four decks, a long black hull and more than 15,000 yards of sail. She was the largest wooden merchant sailing ship built in the United States, launched at East Boston in October 1853 before a huge crowd to the roar of artillery. On 26 December, the day before her maiden voyage, sparks from a bakery fire in New York caught her rigging, and her masts were too tall for the hoses to reach. The print shows ambition at its height.
“Amid the roar of artillery, the music of bands, and the cheers of the multitude”
The real ship Built by Donald McKay at East Boston and launched in October 1853, she burned to the waterline in New York on 26 December 1853. Rebuilt by new owners with a reduced rig and half the crew, she proved fast, carried troops in the Civil War and was lost off Bermuda in 1872.
Sources The Met · massmoments.org · Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
Sweepstakes (clipper, 1853) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Sweepstakes", 1853
Artist After James E. Buttersworth (1817 to 1894); drawn on stone by Frances Flora Bond Palmer; published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.60)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
The Sweepstakes was the last and largest clipper built by the Westervelts of New York, launched in the summer of 1853, and that same year Currier had her on paper, drawn on the stone by the Leicester-born Fanny Palmer after a painting by Buttersworth. The Met notes how such prints celebrated a ship's speed and gave good publicity to her builder, owner and captain; the Sweepstakes was admired for her sleek lines and made two passages between New York and San Francisco in 106 days. Her owners, Chambers and Heiser, were the firm that commissioned Lane's Golden State.
The real ship Built in 1853 by Daniel and Aaron Westervelt of New York for Chambers and Heiser, she went ashore in the Strait of Malacca and was condemned at Batavia in May 1862.
Sources The Met · fitzhenrylaneonline.org
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Northern Light Named ship
Northern Light, 1853
Artist William Bradford (1823 to 1892)
Where to see it MIT Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Hart Nautical Collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bradford paints the Boston clipper Northern Light in classic ship portrait profile, every sail drawing, the Stars and Stripes at her stern and signal flags aloft, with a lighthouse on the shore at left and a schooner off her bow. In 1853, the year of the picture, she made the fastest passage then recorded from San Francisco to Boston, 76 days, overtaking her rival Contest off Cape Horn and reaching Boston Light on 29 May, two days ahead of Contest's arrival in New York. The picture was presented to H. O. Briggs by J. Huckins, a portrait of the fastest ship of her season.
The real ship Designed by Samuel Hartt Pook and built by the Briggs Brothers at South Boston in 1851, Northern Light measured 180 feet and 1,021 tons register; under Captain Freeman Hatch her 1853 San Francisco to Boston run set a record for a single-hulled vessel.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons
Image: William Bradford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Clipper ship, packet ship and coasting craft off Salem Unnamed
Salem Harbor, 1853
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (64.465)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted for Nathaniel Silsbee Jr., of a leading Salem shipping family, this is perhaps Lane's most fanciful gathering of shipping. A clipper under studding sails and a packet ship with painted false gunports sail two or three miles off Salem, although both were too deep to berth in its small harbour; they were really Boston ships, perhaps with Salem owners. Around them are the brigs, schooners, a loaded sloop and a dory that suited the port. The catalogue notes that the wind blows from three directions at once, and that Lane signed his initials and the date on a sail in the foreground.
“There will be a scramble to take in sail if a sea breeze develops!”
The vessels Salem had been one of the busiest ports in America early in the nineteenth century, largely through the China trade, but by 1853 its fortunes were in decline and its merchants needed the deeper port of Boston for large ships. The vessels here are not named.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · MFA Boston
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Winged Arrow and Southern Cross Named ship
The Ships "Winged Arrow" and "Southern Cross" in Boston Harbor, 1853
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio (1971.31)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two Boston clippers stand out of the harbour together, and Lane lets their figureheads introduce them: a sea dragon on the Winged Arrow at right, an eagle on the Southern Cross at left. The water moving around their bows tells you they are under way, a small schooner lies to their left, and the Boston skyline shows in the distance. The picture's first owner was Benjamin Kent Hough, a Gloucester and Boston merchant who imported exotic woods for pianos and fine furniture. It is Lane's second portrait of the Southern Cross, painted two years after the first.
The real ship The Southern Cross was a medium clipper built at South Boston in 1851 by E. and H. O. Briggs for Baker and Morrill and burned by the Confederate cruiser Florida in June 1863. The Winged Arrow was a Boston clipper of the same years, whose construction was described in the Boston Atlas.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Print
James Baines (clipper, 1854) Named ship
Clipper ship 'James Baines', 1854
Artist Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PY8547)
Medium Coloured lithograph
Samuel Walters, one of the best-known painters of the Liverpool school of marine art, drew the James Baines in 1854, the year she was built, and the print's inscription proudly names her one of the Black Ball Line of Australian packets. That phrase carries the whole gold-rush trade: a Donald McKay clipper used to carry troops, emigrants and freight on the Australian route. She lived up to her builder's name, crossing from Boston to Liverpool on her maiden voyage in a record twelve days and six hours, then running from Liverpool to Melbourne in 63 days.
“one of the Black Ball Line of Australian Packets belonging to Messrs James Baines & Co, Liverpool”
The real ship Built by Donald McKay in 1854 and owned by James Baines and Co.'s Black Ball Line, she served as a transport for troops, emigrants and freight on the Australian route, and an engraving of 1857 shows her carrying troops for India.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · collections.sea.museum · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Print
Nightingale (clipper, 1851) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Nightingale" getting under weigh off the Battery, New York, 1854
Artist After James E. Buttersworth (1817 to 1894); lithographed by Charles Parsons; published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.18)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
The Nightingale was named after the Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, and this print plays the compliment through: the clipper sails in New York harbour with a glimpse of the Battery and Castle Garden behind her, the hall where Lind gave two concerts at the start of her American tour in 1850. Drawn when the ship called at New York in May 1854, after Buttersworth and lithographed by Charles Parsons, it shows her at the height of her fame, when she raced with tea and silk from Shanghai to London. Her later years were darker: in 1861 she was captured off Africa as a slave ship.
“proudly sailing in New York Harbor with a background glimpse of Manhattan's Battery Park and Castle Garden”
The real ship Designed by Samuel Hanscom Jr. and launched at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1851, she carried gold seekers to Sydney and then tea from Shanghai to London. Sold at Rio de Janeiro in 1860, she was used in the slave trade; in April 1861 boats from USS Saratoga captured her off Cabinda and freed more than 900 people held below decks. She then carried supplies for the Union blockade and from 1865 laid telegraph cable for Western Union.
Sources The Met · fitzhenrylaneonline.org
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
Racer (clipper) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Racer", 1854
Artist After James E. Buttersworth (1817 to 1894); Charles Parsons; published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.19)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Nathaniel Currier produced dozens of lithographs of American clipper ships for a public hungry for marine pictures. This one follows a painting by Buttersworth, whom the Met counts among the best American ship portraitists of the century, a master of the illusion of a ship moving through the waves. Two years after publication, in May 1856, Racer sank off the east coast of Ireland on passage from Liverpool to New York. All five hundred passengers and crew were rescued, so the print became the portrait of a ship whose loss ended well for everyone aboard.
The real ship Racer was an American clipper ship; in May 1856, bound from Liverpool to New York, she was lost off the east coast of Ireland, and all of the roughly five hundred passengers and crew were rescued.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Golden State Named ship
The Golden State Entering New York Harbor, 1854
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1974.33)
Medium Oil on canvas
This was a commission from the Golden State's owners, the New York firm of Chambers and Heiser, who had already brought Lane to New York the year before to paint their Sweepstakes. He gives them their new clipper entering New York, the city's skyline seen from the New Jersey shore and a steamer just beyond her bow. Her name speaks of the California trade, the long run round Cape Horn in the gold-rush years. The wind-whipped waves patterned diagonally across the canvas show Lane's debt to Robert Salmon, and he signed his full name, which he did on only one other known painting.
The real ship The Golden State was a clipper built in New York in 1852 for Chambers and Heiser and used on the route round Cape Horn to California.
Merchant ships · Print
Comet (clipper, 1851) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Comet" of New York in a Hurricane off Bermuda on her Voyage from New York to San Francisco, October 1852, 1855
Artist After Charles Parsons (1821 to 1910); published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.21)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Most clipper prints show perfection. This one shows peril: the Comet of New York, storm-tossed almost to capsizing in a hurricane off Bermuda in October 1852, her sails and masts damaged, on her way to San Francisco. The sequel made it heroic, for after repairs she made an excellent run round Cape Horn in 79 days. Built by William H. Webb for Bucklin and Crane and launched in July 1851 for the California gold-rush trade, she later sailed in the China tea trade. The print lets us feel what that trade cost in fear and seamanship.
The real ship Built by William H. Webb in New York for Bucklin and Crane and launched in July 1851 for the California trade, the Comet was damaged in a hurricane off Bermuda in 1852, then reached San Francisco round Cape Horn in 79 days; she was later used in the China tea trade.
Sources The Met
Image: After Charles Parsons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Print
Red Jacket (clipper, 1853) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Red Jacket": In the Ice off Cape Horn, on Her Passage from Australia to Liverpool, August 1854, 1855
Artist Charles Parsons (1821 to 1910), after Joseph B. Smith; published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.17)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Red Jacket ranks among the largest and fastest American clippers ever built, and on her first crossing from New York to Liverpool she set the sailing record of 13 days, 1 hour and 25 minutes, dock to dock. Chartered by the White Star Line, she reached Melbourne in 69 days, then came home round Cape Horn, where, as this print records, she was held up for four days in the ice in August 1854. She still reached Liverpool in seventy-three days with all her passengers and some 45,000 ounces of gold. The print turns the delay into beauty and peril, the ship's sails set among floes and towering bergs.
The real ship Designed by Samuel Hartt Pook and built by George Thomas at Rockland, Maine, launched in 1853, Red Jacket was named after the Seneca leader Sagoyewatha. Bought by Liverpool investors in 1854, she served the Australian emigrant trade until 1866, was sold to Portugal, and from 1872 carried lumber from Quebec to London.
Image: Charles Parsons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Transatlantic packet ship towed by a steam tug Unnamed
New York Harbor, c. 1855
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (48.446)
Medium Oil on canvas
At the centre of this big canvas a steam tug guides a large packet ship out into the bay to begin a transatlantic crossing, riding high because her hold is probably stuffed with buoyant cotton. Around her Lane assembles the whole working port: a packet brig, a coastal passenger steamer, a Hudson River sloop, a Whitehall boat that served as the harbour's water taxi. The sails hang slack in the still late-afternoon air and only steam and oars are moving. Sail was at its zenith; steam was just proving itself. Lane may have painted a prophecy.
“Has Lane mixed some prophecy into his composition?”
The vessels The packet ship is unnamed; the catalogue describes her as a large packet bound out on a transatlantic voyage, riding high with a probable cargo of cotton, beside a packet brig in the coastal trade.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Star Light (clipper, 1854) Named ship
"Starlight" in Harbor, c. 1855
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (2002.8)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lane shows a new ship doing something only sailors notice: drying her sails. Her jibs are partly raised and her square sails hang loose in their gear, because damp canvas furled away would mildew, and some of it was nearly an eighth of an inch thick and all of it stitched by hand. It is a quiet, knowing picture of seamanship in a busy harbour, with a tug bringing a ship in, sloops at work and men standing on the wharf, among them Lane's only known depiction of an African-American man outside a family group in his View of Baltimore.
“Some of the cotton canvas is almost one-eighth inch thick, and all of the sails are hand stitched”
The real ship The Star Light was a clipper of 1,153 tons built at South Boston in 1854 for the Boston firm of Baker and Morrill.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · Google Arts & Culture
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Print
Dreadnought (packet, 1853) Named ship
Clipper Ship "Dreadnought" off Tuskar Light, 12 1/2 Days from New York on her Celebrated Passage into Dock of Liverpool in 13 Days 11 Hours, December 1854, 1856
Artist After Duncan McFarlane; drawn on stone by Charles Parsons; published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.23)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
The title reads like a ship's log, and that is the point: twelve and a half days out of New York, the Dreadnought is already passing Tuskar Rock lighthouse off the south-east coast of Ireland, on her way to docking in Liverpool in 13 days 11 hours. She sailed for the Red Cross Line under Captain Samuel Samuels, to whom the print is dedicated, carrying corn, cotton and other raw materials east and emigrants and manufactured goods west. Currier's print, after a painting by the British artist Duncan McFarlane, made sure shippers and passengers would remember the name of so fast a ship.
The real ship The Dreadnought carried passengers and cargo for the Red Cross Line between New York and Liverpool under Captain Samuel Samuels; between 1854 and 1856 she made more than twenty voyages, and in December 1854 crossed in less than thirteen days.
Sources The Met · Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Leonard (1854) Named ship
The ship Leonard, 1859
Artist Style of William John Huggins
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3445)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Leonard heads out to sea in a strong breeze, seen broadside from starboard with figures along her deck, white cliffs and a lighthouse behind her and another ship coming in on the right. She was a purpose-built Mediterranean trader. The picture is signed and dated 1859, which puts it after Huggins's death in 1845 unless the date is a misreading for 1839, so the museum catalogues it as in his style. It is a ship portrait in the manner of a painter whose work is valued as a record of the shipping of his day.
“Her dark, sleek hull and broad spread of sail almost fill the canvas”
The real ship The Leonard was a purpose-built Mediterranean trading ship, probably sold abroad in the early 1860s.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Style of William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
A sailing boat in the roads of Elsinore Unnamed
An Early Summer Morning in the Roads of Elsinore (Tidlig sommermorgen på Helsingørs rhed), 1860
Artist Carl Frederik Sørensen (1818 to 1879)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS821)
Medium Oil on canvas
Carl Frederik Sørensen studied perspective under Eckersberg, went on sea voyages almost every year and took a special interest in the weather and its effects on the sea. Besides storms and naval actions he painted idyllic scenes full of charm and atmosphere, and this large canvas of 1860 is one of them: an early summer morning in the roads of Elsinore. The museum records a sailing boat and Kronborg Castle in the scene.
The vessels An unnamed sailing boat in the roads off Elsinore.
Image: Carl Frederik Sørensen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
El Dorado (emigrant ship) Named in the picture
The Last of England (second version), 1860
Artist Ford Madox Brown (1821 to 1893)
Where to see it The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (bought from Miss Mary Slater, Marlay Fund, 1917)
Medium Oil
Brown's second version of his emigration picture, painted in 1860 and bought from him that year by Colonel W. J. Gillum, is one of two replicas he was asked to make, so admired was the original. The lifeboat behind the couple carries the ship's name, El Dorado, the legendary country of gold: perhaps an ironic nod to Woolner, whose departure for the Australian gold fields had inspired the picture and who came home no better off. Brown painted in the open air on dreary days to catch the peculiar light of a dull day at sea. The picture born of professional failure became his first major success.
“the peculiar look of light all round, which objects have on a dull day at sea”
The vessels The El Dorado, named on the lifeboat, stands for the emigrant ships of the 1850s; no specific real vessel is identified.
Sources Fitzwilliam Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Ford Madox Brown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Blackwall frigate Unnamed
A Blackwall frigate off the Cape, 1863
Artist Frederick Tudgay
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2380)
Medium Oil on canvas
'Blackwall frigates' was the popular name for the last generation of sailing East Indiamen, designed and built by the Green family at their Blackwall yard in the 1840s for the East Indies and Australian trades, and so called for their lines and speed. Tudgay paints one off the Cape. Along her side runs a band of painted ports, though she carried no guns on her upper deck: perhaps still meant to deter pirates in Eastern waters, but above all a decorative tradition, later most associated with Devitt and Moore. It is the last flowering of the sailing East Indiaman.
“a decorative tradition, finally most associated with the shipping firm of Devitt & Moore”
The vessels Blackwall frigates were the last generation of sailing East Indiamen, designed and built by the Green family at Blackwall in the 1840s for the East Indies and Australian trades, often with painted ports instead of guns.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Antelope (brig, 1843) Named ship
Brig "Antelope" in Boston Harbor, 1863
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (48.449)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lane painted Antelope twenty years after she left Boston and eleven years after she was lost, so the picture is a memorial rather than a record. The Lane catalogue suggests it was commissioned by a relative of her first master, Captain Philip Dumaresq, who had died in 1861, and that the man in the yawl boat, with his telltale sideburns, may be Dumaresq himself. Lane probably worked from a Chinese export painting of the brig, setting her against a Boston skyline of the mid-1840s, the city as her captain would have known it.
The real ship Built at East Boston in 1843 by Samuel Hall for Russell and Company, under the eye of Robert Bennett Forbes, Antelope was an exceptionally fast brig that spent her whole career smuggling opium into China and never returned home. Dismasted in a typhoon in 1848 and rerigged as a barque, she was wrecked on a reef near Wusong in 1852.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · MFA Boston
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Fidelia (Black Ball Line packet, 1845) Named ship
The packet 'Fidelia', c. 1863 to 1865
Artist British School, 19th century
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3341)
Medium Oil on canvas
The painter has caught the Fidelia doing what a packet did at the end of a crossing: shortening sail as she nears land, the courses on her fore and main masts clewed up and the royals reefed, a mountainous coast rising on the left. Her name is on her bow and on the pennant at her maintop, and the Black Ball house flag flies at her foretop. The picture is dated to the American Civil War years by a small detail, a 35-star American flag, in use only from July 1863 to July 1865. A packet launched in 1845, still at sea two decades on.
The real ship Launched in 1845, the Fidelia sailed in the Black Ball Line, which ran transatlantic packets until 1878.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: British School, 19th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
Maidstone (1839) Named ship
The Blackwall frigate Maidstone at sea, 1869
Artist H. Callow
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3467)
Medium Oil on board
The Maidstone sails through a moderately choppy sea under nearly full canvas, the red ensign at her mizzen: by then it was flown only by the British merchant marine, the Royal Navy having given it up in 1864. A Union flag flies at her fore, signal pennants stream from the mizzen and a lifeboat hangs in davits at her stern. Ahead of her a small junk with Chinese battened lugsails places the scene in Eastern waters, quite possibly China, with cliffs and a mountain far off on the left. It is the Blackwall frigate at work on the long routes east.
The real ship The museum records the Maidstone as a ship of 1839. Blackwall frigates were the last generation of British sailing East Indiamen, built for the East Indies and Australian trades.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
A sailing ship entering Christiania, with a full-rigged ship at anchor off Kolsås Unnamed
From the Inlet of Oslo (Innseilingen til Christiania), 1874
Artist Hans Gude (1825 to 1903)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.00262)
Medium Oil on canvas
Gude, by then a professor in Karlsruhe, painted the approach to the Norwegian capital in a sea breeze: small craft and glittering waves lead the eye to a dominating sailing ship, with Akershus Fortress behind and a full-rigged ship anchored before Kolsås in the distance. A puff of smoke on the horizon announces the age of steam. The museum adds a detail: Gude's brother built model ships as a hobby, and Gude used those models as reference when painting ships in his studio.
“Gude's brother built model ships as a hobby, and Gude used these models as reference when working on maritime paintings in his studio.”
The vessels Merchant sailing vessels of the Oslofjord trade in the 1870s, when sail still dominated Norwegian shipping but steamers were appearing.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikidata
Merchant ships · Painting
Large ships at anchor in the harbour of Copenhagen and a small boat Unnamed
The Port of Copenhagen (Το λιμάνι της Κοπεγχάγης), 1874
Artist Ioannis Altamouras (1852 to 1878)
Where to see it National Gallery of Greece, Athens (Π.2087, bequest of Antonios Benakis)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in Copenhagen in 1874, the year the Impressionists held their first group exhibition in Paris, by a young Greek painter who had gone north with a scholarship from King George I to study near Carl Frederik Sørensen. The National Gallery describes the misty waterfront of towers, smoking chimneys and big anchored ships as a dark horizontal line cutting the picture in two: one third sea, where a dark boat moves, and two thirds of restless cloud. Sent to the Olympia exhibition in Athens in 1875, it won the second award. Altamouras died of tuberculosis at 26.
The vessels The ships are unnamed vessels at anchor in the port of Copenhagen.
Sources nationalgallery.gr · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (EL)
Image: Ioannis Altamouras, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Print
Three Brothers (ex-Vanderbilt, 1855) Named ship
Clipper Ship Three Brothers, 2972 Tons: The Largest Sailing Ship in the World, 1875
Artist Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers (active 1857 to 1907)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.72)
Medium Colour lithograph
Few ships had a stranger career. She was built in New York in 1855 as the Vanderbilt for the Commodore Vanderbilt service from New York to Le Havre, bought by the United States government in 1861 and used in the Civil War against Confederate warships. After 1865 San Francisco merchants bought her, renamed her Three Brothers and put her in the trade between San Francisco, New York and Liverpool. Currier and Ives show her speeding before the wind with all thirty-one sails set, and the inscription proclaims her the largest sailing ship in the world.
The real ship Built in New York in 1855 as the Vanderbilt for the Commodore Vanderbilt service to Le Havre, purchased by the US government in 1861 for Civil War service, and after 1865 renamed Three Brothers by San Francisco merchants for the San Francisco, New York and Liverpool trade.
Image: Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Merchant ships · Painting
A square-rigged sailing ship, a small steamer and a sailing boat off Grimstad Unnamed
View of Grimstad (Fra Grimstad), 1875
Artist Peder Balke (1804 to 1887)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.02614)
Medium Oil on wood
Peder Balke, a pupil of J. C. Dahl, is known for portraying the Norwegian landscape in a romantic and dramatic manner, yet this small late panel of 1875 is calm and clear. Off the low shore of Grimstad on Norway's south coast a square-rigged ship lies with her sails set on still water, a small sailing boat nearby, while a little steamer trails smoke along the coast. Balke signed it with his name and the year in the corner. Sail and steam share the same quiet harbour approach.
The vessels The vessels are unnamed: a square-rigged sailing ship, a small steamer and small craft off the port of Grimstad.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Anglo Saxon (clipper, 1854) Named ship
The clipper Anglo Saxon in The Downs with a Deal lugger, mid- to late 19th century
Artist Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3195)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Downs, the roadstead off Deal sheltered by the Goodwin Sands, was where merchant ships waiting for an easterly wind into the Channel gathered, at times in their hundreds. The Deal boatmen, famous for their seamanship and bravery, launched from the open beach to carry provisions, mail and passengers out to them, and the Deal luggers were the largest of their boats. Samuel Walters pairs the clipper Anglo Saxon with one of these luggers: the ocean-going ship and the small craft that met her off the English coast. It is a picture of a long voyage touching home.
The real ship The museum records the vessel as the clipper Anglo Saxon of 1854, shown in the Downs with a Deal lugger.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Palestine (packet, 1854) Named ship
The ship Palestine, mid- to late 19th century
Artist Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3533)
Medium Oil on canvas
An American packet in a Liverpool painter's hands: the Palestine sails broadside on under full canvas, the flag of the United States at her stern and the house flag of the Black Cross Line at her main, crewmen busy in the bow and a coastline faint in the distance on the far left. Samuel Walters, born in London, made his name in Liverpool, where he began exhibiting in 1830, and his work was popular in North America as well as at home. The Palestine was a transatlantic packet, built by Jacob and Westervelt in 1854 for the Black Cross Line.
The real ship A transatlantic packet built by Jacob and Westervelt in 1854 for the Black Cross Line.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Merchant ships · Painting
Cutty Sark Named ship
The clipper Cutty Sark, late 19th to early 20th century
Artist John Fraser
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3277)
Medium Oil painting
This is a portrait of the ship that outlived her whole class. The tea clippers were built to bring the annual crop home first, since the first ship in could command a far higher price, and their large sail area and sleek lines were the price of that race. The Cutty Sark was the finest of them, yet she carried tea for only eight years before the Suez Canal, which sailing ships could not use, made her kind redundant. A painting of her under sail is a picture of brief perfection, made more poignant because the ship herself still stands in Greenwich.
The real ship Launched at Dumbarton in 1869, the Cutty Sark carried tea from China for eight years, then enjoyed a decade of success in the Australian wool trade. After years of decline under other owners from 1895 she was bought and preserved by Captain Wilfred Dowman in 1922, and since 1957 she has rested in a purpose-built dry dock at Greenwich.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Merchant ships · Painting
Cutty Sark Named ship
The 'Cutty Sark' at Sunset, 1920 to 1939
Artist John Everett (1876 to 1949)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3278)
Medium Oil on canvas
By the 1930s Everett was experimenting with unusual compositions, rhythmic shapes and strong contrasting colour, and he turned that new language on the most famous clipper of all. The waves here are painted in an Art Deco manner and the sunlight falls in straight yellow bars that reach towards the edges of the canvas. The effect is less a ship portrait than a hymn: the old tea clipper transfigured by a modern eye, by a painter who had himself signed on as crew in sailing ships and had seen her at sea.
The real ship The Cutty Sark was launched at Dumbarton in 1869 for the China tea trade and later worked the Australian wool run. Preserved from 1922, she survives in dry dock at Greenwich.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Cutty Sark Named ship
The 'Cutty Sark' and a Tug, 1921
Artist John Everett (1876 to 1949)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC4131)
Medium Oil on canvas
Everett sailed as a working seaman and had seen the Cutty Sark at sea under her Portuguese name, so this is a painter's farewell to a ship he knew. She rides the crest of a wave in full sail, lit against an orange sky, while a tug labours in the dark trough below, its smoke trailing into the sea. The museum reads it as past, present and future in one frame: the sailing ship glorified, the steam tug toiling, the cross of its foremast hinting at present suffering. The stylised waves owe something to Hokusai.
The real ship Built for the China tea trade in 1869, the Cutty Sark later excelled in the Australian wool trade, was sold to Portuguese owners in 1895 and renamed Ferreira, and was rescued by Captain Dowman in 1922. She was placed in dry dock at Greenwich in 1954 as the last surviving British merchant clipper.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Print
New World (packet ship, 1846) Named ship
United States Packet Ship New World, 1404 tons register, built at Boston 1846 by Donald McKay, original undated; reproduction printed 1962
Artist Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF7739)
Medium Colour reproduction print (1962) of a painting
Before Donald McKay built his famous clippers, he built packets, and the New World of 1846 was one of them, a ship of 1,404 tons registered at Boston. Walters shows her at sea with all her sails set, the flags of the Blue Swallowtail Line at fore and main and the American flag at the mizzen, other sailing ships on either side and land far off on the left. The museum holds the picture only as a reproduction printed in 1962, but it preserves Walters's portrait of a ship from the transatlantic packet trade.
The real ship Built at Boston in 1846 by Donald McKay, the New World was a packet ship of 1,404 tons register flying the flags of the Blue Swallowtail Line.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Merchant ships · Painting
Ariel and Taeping Named ship
The Tea Clipper Race of 1866 Between the Ariel and Taeping, undated
Artist Montague Dawson (1895 to 1973)
Where to see it Barry Art Museum, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia (2024.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dawson grew up in Southampton and was mentored by the marine painter Charles Napier Hemy, and here he takes up the most famous race of the tea-clipper age. Ariel and Taeping, both built by Robert Steele and Co. of Greenock, left Foochow at the end of May 1866 and, after a passage of more than 14,000 miles, were reported heading up the English Channel together. Ariel was ahead when the tugs took them in tow off Deal, but the tide at the docks decided it: Taeping docked 28 minutes before her, and the prize was shared between the two ships by agreement.
The real ship Both ships were built by Robert Steele and Co. at Greenock: Taeping in 1863, Ariel in 1865. Taeping was wrecked near Ladd Reef in 1871, and Ariel was lost in 1872.
Sources barryart.emuseum.com · rehs.com · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Barry Art Museum, Norfolk, Virginia, where the original is kept. Photo: Packer1028, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
Henry Grace à Dieu (Great Harry) Named ship
The Embarkation of Henry VIII at Dover, c. 1520 to 1540
Artist British School, 16th century
Where to see it Royal Collection, Hampton Court Palace (RCIN 405793)
Medium Oil on canvas
Commissioned by Henry VIII and now in the Royal Collection, the picture shows the king and his fleet setting sail from Dover for Calais on 31 May 1520, on the way to meet Francis I at the Field of Cloth of Gold. Henry can be seen standing in the waist of a ship with golden sails, presumably the Henry Grace à Dieu, and the painting was surely meant to show the might of his new royal navy. The ships are drawn out of proportion, perhaps deliberately. It is propaganda in paint, a king arriving by sea as a spectacle.
“an intentional device to convey the impressive nature of this journey”
The real ship The Henry Grace à Dieu, known as the Great Harry, was built at Woolwich in 1512 to 1514 and was in her day the largest warship in the world. She proved top-heavy and rolled in rough seas, was renamed for Edward VI at his accession, and was accidentally destroyed by fire at Woolwich in 1553.
Sources Royal Collection · stories.sal.org.uk · londonremembers.com
Image: British School, 16th century, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Henry Grace à Dieu (Great Harry) Named ship
The Henry Grace à Dieu, from the Anthony Roll, 1546
Artist Anthony Anthony (active 1530s to 1540s)
Where to see it Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge (Pepys 2991)
Medium Drawing on vellum (manuscript roll)
The Anthony Roll presents Henry VIII's greatest ship, the Great Harry, with sails furled, pennants fluttering and open gunports that make plain her firepower. The roll was a working record of the ships of the Tudor navy, presented to the king in 1546 by Anthony Anthony, a naval ordnance official, yet it has the splendour of a heraldic pageant. Charles II gave two of the rolls to Samuel Pepys in 1680, and this drawing became the model for later engravings of Henry's flagship, the image by which she is remembered.
The real ship The Henry Grace à Dieu was built at Woolwich in 1512 to 1514, in her day the largest warship in the world; she proved top-heavy and rolled in rough seas. Renamed for Edward VI at his accession, she was accidentally destroyed by fire at Woolwich in 1553.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia · londonremembers.com
Image: Anthony Anthony, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Mary Rose Named ship
The Mary Rose, from the Anthony Roll, 1546
Artist Anthony Anthony (active 1530s to 1540s)
Where to see it Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge (Pepys 2991)
Medium Drawing on vellum (manuscript roll)
Anthony Anthony, an official of the Ordnance, presented Henry VIII in 1546 with three rolls, more than fifteen yards in all, picturing the 58 ships of the king's Army by the Sea with their guns and men. The Mary Rose appears at 700 tonnes with 91 guns, and the roll holds the only contemporary picture of her; she had sunk in the Solent in July 1545, before the roll was presented. Since her hull was raised in 1982, the roll and the wreck have been compared, a courtly inventory set against the ship itself.
“the only illustration and final report of the Mary Rose from its active life”
The real ship Launched in 1511, the Mary Rose served Henry VIII for 34 years and was substantially rebuilt in 1536. She saw her last action on 19 July 1545, when she sank in the Solent; the wreck was found in 1971, raised on 11 October 1982 and is displayed at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources maryrose.org · Wikipedia
Image: Anthony Anthony, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Sovereign of the Seas Named ship
Peter Pett and the Sovereign of the Seas, c. 1645 to 1650
Artist Sir Peter Lely (1618 to 1680)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC2949)
Medium Oil on canvas
Peter Pett stands in a black gown holding a pair of dividers, the mark of a family of ship designers and builders, while the stern of the great ship he built fills the left half of the canvas. Her carved stern carried an emblematic programme devised by the dramatist Thomas Heywood: Victory, Jason, Hercules and Neptune gathered to promote Charles I's claim to the sovereignty of the seas. Lely painted the man; the ship is by another hand, possibly Isaac Sailmaker. Portrait and vessel make one statement, a shipwright dynasty and its masterpiece.
“the most powerful ship of her day”
The real ship Built by Peter Pett at Woolwich in 1637 to the designs of his father Phineas, the Sovereign of the Seas was the prototype for the English 100-gun first-rates, each brass gun embossed with a motto claiming Edgar's sceptre of the seas. Renamed Royal Sovereign in 1660 and rebuilt again in 1685, she fought in all three Dutch wars and was accidentally burnt at Chatham in 1696.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Art UK
Royal and state ships · Print
Sovereign of the Seas Named ship
'Sovereign of the Seas' (1637), mid-17th century
Artist John Payne (1607 to 1647)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAJ2441)
Medium Coloured engraving
Payne's engraving carried the image of Charles I's great ship to a wide public. The Dutch called her the golden devil for her black and gold, and her gilded carving alone cost over £6,600, as much as the hull of a two-decker. She was the first ship with three full gun decks, carrying 102 bronze guns on the king's orders instead of the 90 planned, and so large that two smaller ships were built from her waste timbers. Her building was part of the king's plan to overawe the Dutch and the Spanish, and the print served the same purpose.
“the most magnificent ship of her era”
The real ship Designed in 1634 by Phineas Pett and built at Woolwich, she entered service in 1638, first fought at the Kentish Knock on 28 September 1652, was renamed Royal Sovereign in 1660 and served through the Dutch wars and at Beachy Head and Barfleur. She accidentally caught fire at Chatham on 27 January 1696.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Drawing
The king's pink Unnamed
The Departure of Charles II from Scheveningen, 23 May 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH1725)
Medium Graphite, grey wash and watercolour
Drawn on the spot and in haste, the museum believes: boats, carriages and people jam the shore at Scheveningen as Charles II, standing on a pink, takes leave of Elizabeth of Bohemia, the Princess Royal, the young Prince of Orange and the States deputies. The pink lies hauled up on the right, three crowns for his three kingdoms on her mast tops. From here he went out in the Earl of Sandwich's barge to the Naseby, which he renamed Royal Charles before sailing for England. It is the Restoration seen from the sand.
The vessels A pink was a small Dutch fishing vessel. This one, hauled up on the beach at Scheveningen and marked with three crowns on her mast tops, served as the platform from which Charles II took his leave on 23 May 1660.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Royal Charles (ex-Naseby) Named ship
The 'Royal Charles' Under Way, May 1660
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH1723)
Medium Pencil and watercolour with wash
The elder Van de Velde drew the ship that carried Charles II back to his kingdom, seen from the weather quarter, close-hauled on the starboard tack, with the royal standard at the main and streamers at the yardarms. The museum calls it an accurate drawing with disfiguring corrections, made probably as the ship left the Dutch coast with the Restoration squadron, so we watch him chase a moving subject. Seven years later the Dutch would carry the same ship off from the Medway: this drawing catches her at the proudest hour of her royal life.
The real ship Designed and built at Woolwich by Peter Pett as the Naseby and altered during construction into a first-rate fit for a fleet flagship, she was renamed Royal Charles by Charles II and the Duke of York on 23 May 1660. The Dutch captured her in the Raid on the Medway on 12 June 1667 and took her to Hellevoetsluis, where she was auctioned for scrap in 1673.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Royal yacht, possibly the Mary Named ship
An English Royal Yacht, c. 1677
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Robert Lehman Collection (1975.1.810)
Medium Pencil, brush and grey ink and grey wash
The elder Van de Velde knew the rigging and habits of ships from first-hand observation, and this sheet may show the English royal yacht Mary, in which William of Orange travelled to Holland after his wedding to Princess Mary in 1677. The Met admires its spirited, curving lines, which give the drawing movement and brio. It is a wedding voyage, if the identification is right, caught in a few rapid strokes by a draughtsman who had drawn ships all his life.
“spirited, curvy lines, which give the drawing a sense of movement and brio”
The real ship Royal Museums Greenwich records a royal yacht Mary of 1677; the Met suggests this is the yacht in which William of Orange sailed to Holland after his marriage that year.
Sources The Met · Royal Museums Greenwich
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
Royal Escape (ex-Surprise) Named ship
The Yacht 'Royal Escape' Close Hauled in a Breeze, late 17th century
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3600)
Medium Oil painting
A humble collier in a lively sea, yet she carried a king. As the Surprise she took Charles II to France after his defeat by Cromwell at Worcester in September 1651, and at his restoration in 1660 he bought her, commissioned her as a royal yacht and renamed her Royal Escape. He kept her moored in the Thames opposite the Palace of Whitehall as a reminder to himself and his subjects. Van de Velde paints her among other shipping, a modest hull carrying the whole romance of the king's flight.
“as a reminder to himself and his subjects”
The real ship Formerly the coasting collier Surprise, in which Charles II escaped to France in 1651, she was bought by the king in 1660, commissioned as a royal yacht and moored in the Thames opposite the Palace of Whitehall.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMS Tiger and the royal yachts Named ship
Visit of Charles II to the 'Tiger' at Woolwich: The 'Tiger' Lying To, Surrounded by Yachts, 1681
Artist Willem van de Velde the Elder (1611 to 1693)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH1872)
Medium Graphite, grey wash and watercolour
In 1681 Charles II visited the Tiger at Woolwich, and the elder Van de Velde, then about seventy, recorded the scene in a long panoramic sheet. The Tiger, seen from slightly above her starboard beam, is getting under way with the royal standard at the main, and around her the artist names the royal yachts by inscription: Charlotte, Kitchen, Henrietta, Cleveland, Isabella. It is a roll call of the king's yachts, the vessels that made the Restoration court a court afloat.
The real ship The Tiger was a warship of Charles II's navy, visited by the king at Woolwich in 1681; around her lay royal yachts of the Stuart court, among them the Charlotte, Kitchen, Henrietta, Cleveland and Isabella.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
Royal yacht Mary Named ship
The 'Mary', Yacht, Arriving with Princess Mary at Gravesend in a Fresh Breeze, 12 February 1689
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection (BHC0328)
Medium Oil on canvas
Within three months of William's landing in 1688, Princess Mary came over from Briel to join him, and Van de Velde shows the yacht named for her about to anchor in Gravesend Reach, taking in her sails. The princess is shown in her stern, the central point of the picture, and at the masthead flies the white standard of the 1688 revolution. Around her are wherries, official barges, three other English royal yachts and over a dozen Dutch vessels, some firing salutes. A revolution arrives by water, under a fresh breeze.
“For the Protestant Religion and the Liberty of England”
The real ship Royal Museums Greenwich identifies the yacht as the Mary of 1677, one of the royal yachts of the later Stuart navy.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Royal yacht Mary Named ship
A Royal Yacht, Possibly the 'Mary', 1707 to 1720
Artist L. de Man (active 1707 to 1720)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Macpherson Collection (BHC1007)
Medium Oil on canvas
A small smack-rigged royal yacht, thought to be the Mary, fires a salute from her port side close inshore, the Union flag at her stern, while two boats full of figures come alongside and another ship answers in the distance. On the shore two figures carry baskets, presumably for shellfish, and a small cargo lighter sails by. De Man was a Dutch painter who worked in England from about 1707 to 1720, partly at or near Deptford, and he shows the royal yacht not in grand review but in the everyday ceremony of the river.
The real ship Royal Museums Greenwich identifies her, tentatively, as the royal yacht Mary of 1677, one of the yachts based on the lower Thames in the early eighteenth century.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Royal and state ships · Painting
Racing gondolas and ceremonial boats of the Venetian regatta Unnamed
Regatta on the Grand Canal in Honour of Frederick IV, King of Denmark, 1711
Artist Luca Carlevarijs (1663 to 1730)
Where to see it J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (86.PA.599)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the bitterly cold winter of 1708 to 1709 Frederick IV of Denmark came to Venice, formally incognito as the Count of Oldenburg, and stayed nine weeks, going to the opera, buying glass and visiting the Arsenal. One of the highlights of his stay was a grand regatta on the Grand Canal held in his honour, and Carlevarijs recorded it, signing and dating the canvas on the stern of a boat, MDCCXI. The King appears in a gondola rowed by eight oarsmen beside a cavalier, enjoying the spectacle as the boats of the regatta crowd the canal between the palaces.
The vessels The boats are Venetian gondolas and regatta craft on the Grand Canal; the King's gondola is rowed by eight oarsmen. None is individually named.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Luca Carlevarijs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
The French ambassador's boats at the Molo Unnamed
The Reception of the French Ambassador in Venice (The French Ambassador's Arrival in Venice), c. 1726 to 1727
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Louis XIV had broken off relations with Venice in 1709, and only in 1723 did Louis XV send a new ambassador. To commemorate the renewed friendship, Count Jacques-Vincent Languet de Gergy commissioned two canvases from Canaletto, his first major commission. Here the Count disembarks onto the quay before the Doge's Palace and is greeted by officials of the Republic. Some scholars see Carlevarijs's picture of a French embassy arriving in 1706 as the model. Its pendant showed the Bucintoro returning to the Molo; both went to Russia in the 1760s.
The vessels The boats are the ceremonial craft that brought the ambassador to the Molo; they are not individually named.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (RU)
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
Bucentaur's Return to the Pier by the Palazzo Ducale, 1728 to 1729
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
Medium Oil on canvas
One of Canaletto's earliest treatments of the subject, dated 1728 to 1729, just as the new Bucintoro, launched in January 1728, entered service. The museum describes a lively festive scene, gondolas darting about and a crowded embankment, with the Doge's golden vessel standing by the pier beneath the bell tower and the Doge's Palace. The picture was commissioned by a French ambassador and forms a pair with a canvas in the Hermitage. Seen here in her first seasons, the ship is as new as the painter's fame.
“a lively, festive scene with gondolas darting about, a crowded embankment and the Doge's golden vessel”
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources Google Arts & Culture · Wikimedia Commons · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Bucintoro Returning to the Molo on Ascension Day after the Ceremony of Wedding the Adriatic, 1730s
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle
Medium Oil on canvas
On a canvas more than two metres wide, the state barge brings the Doge and members of the Senate back to the quayside in front of the Doge's Palace after the Sposalizio del Mare, the marriage of the Republic to the Adriatic. Ambassadorial gondolas attend her, and the gondola in the foreground carries the French royal arms, which may suggest the picture was commissioned by the French ambassador, the Comte de Gergy. Here the Bucintoro is diplomacy as well as ritual: every embassy afloat pays court to the Republic's ship.
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources Art UK · Wikimedia Commons · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Bacino di San Marco on Ascension Day, c. 1733 to 1734
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it Royal Collection, London (RCIN 404417)
Medium Oil on canvas
Canaletto shows the Doge's barge returning to the Molo after the Wedding of the Sea, when the Bucintoro was rowed out into the Adriatic and the Doge cast a ring blessed by the Patriarch into the waters. The ship is the whole reason for the gathering, the fixed point of the spectacle. The picture belonged to Consul Joseph Smith, the greatest collector in Venice, before George III bought almost his entire collection in 1762, and so the proudest ship of the Venetian Republic came to hang in a British palace.
“the Doge cast a ring blessed by the Patriarch into the waters, symbolising the marriage of Venice to the sea”
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources Royal Collection · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
Regatta boats and bissone on the Grand Canal Unnamed
Venice: A Regatta on the Grand Canal, c. 1735
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG938)
Medium Oil on canvas
The earlier of the National Gallery's two regattas is all noise and sunlight. Spectators in the foreground raise their arms and point, and a masked figure in a black cape waves a white cloth as the racers speed up the canal; wealthy Venetians sit in colourful rowing boats and ordinary folk in smaller gondolas, while buildings hang out brightly coloured cloths. The regatta drew crowds of Venetians and foreign visitors, and Canaletto's sharply receding canal pulls the whole city into the race.
“wealthy Venetians in colourful rowing boats and ordinary folk in smaller gondolas”
The vessels The regatta was raced in light boats called battelli up the middle of the Grand Canal, while wealthy Venetians watched from large, colourful rowing boats called bissone and ordinary folk from smaller craft.
Sources National Gallery
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bissone and racing gondolas of the Venetian regatta Unnamed
A Regatta on the Grand Canal, c. 1740
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it The National Gallery, London (NG4454)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Republic's regatta brought the whole city to the Grand Canal. Up the middle race the one-oared gondolas, two of them swinging round the bend tilted and almost touching, while lavishly decorated bissone carry nobles reclining on velvet cushions and rowers in colourful uniforms. At the lower left stands the Macchina della Regatta, a temporary floating pavilion of painted wood, plaster and papier mâché where the prizes were given. Canaletto's steep perspective drives the eye down the course, and every masked spectator seems to lean towards the race.
“Lavishly decorated bissone (eight- or ten-oared boats) carry Venetian nobles, who recline on velvet cushions”
The vessels Bissone were lavishly decorated eight- or ten-oared boats that carried Venetian nobles at the regatta, some adorned with mythological figures and animals; the race itself was rowed in light one-oared gondolas called battelli.
Sources National Gallery
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Bucintoro, c. 1745 to 1750
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, on deposit at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona (inv. 77, 1962.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Canaletto sets the red and gold galley moored among gondolas and other boats beside the Piazzetta, the moment of her return to the quay at San Marco, and builds the whole view along a diagonal from the Doge's Palace to the great bulk of the Salute. The museum counts almost a dozen known versions of this composition, original and studio, proof of how much Canaletto's clients wanted this ship. Warm light and a wide sky make the barge feel less a vessel than a jewel set into the city.
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti and carved by Antonio Corradini, with a lion on the prow and a figure of Justice. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798 and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources museothyssen.org · Wikimedia Commons · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMY Royal Caroline Named ship
The 'Royal Caroline', 1750
Artist John Cleveley the Elder (c. 1712 to 1777)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3598)
Medium Oil on canvas
Signed and inscribed 'Royal Caroline Yacht' in the year she entered service, this is a broadside portrait of the new principal royal yacht, seen from off the starboard bow in full sail with the red and blue ensigns and the common pendant. Cleveley worked as a shipwright at Deptford, where she was built, and often painted ships of that yard; his eye for rigging and carving is a shipwright's eye. Eleven years later, sumptuously refitted and renamed Royal Charlotte, the same yacht would bring the future queen of George III to England.
“‘Royal Caroline Yacht’. J Cleveley 1750”
The real ship Designed by Joseph Allin and built at Deptford, the Royal Caroline was launched on 29 January 1750 and replaced the Carolina as principal royal yacht. Renamed Royal Charlotte in 1761, she carried Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to England to marry George III, a voyage on which westerly gales blew the squadron three times to the Norwegian coast; she was broken up in 1820.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Cleveley the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Jousting boats on the Tiber under the papal flag Unnamed
A Sporting Contest on the Tiber, 1750
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG236)
Medium Oil on canvas
Before the Ports of France, Vernet worked in Rome, and this was one of four paintings he sent from there to the Paris Salon of 1750. From the west bank of the Tiber, looking to the Castel Sant'Angelo, crowds watch a river joust, a popular entertainment for great births, marriages and royal visits. Two boats with seven oarsmen each, in the caps of artisans, square up, the left one flying the arms of Pope Benedict XIV; a smaller boat with a blue flag lies between. The remains of Nero's bridge break the water, and the three bright figures in front are probably Vernet and the Duke and Duchess of Nivernais.
“river jousts were a popular entertainment associated with important births and marriages and the visits of monarchs to cities”
The vessels The jousting boats are light rowing boats, each manned by seven oarsmen whose caps suggest they were artisans; they are unnamed.
Sources National Gallery
Royal and state ships · Painting
The Solide, flagship of the port of Toulon, the barque Hirondelle, and the galleys Named ship
The Old Port of Toulon, seen from beside the Victualling Stores (Le Port vieux de Toulon. La vue en est prise du côté des magasins aux vivres), 1756
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (INV 8298, deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
Sunset over the Old Port throws long shadows across the quay, where wine casks, sheep, an unruly ox and a pig caught by the tail wait to be loaded into a boat for the crews. Chained convicts under guard work on the right. In the middle distance mast timber is held under water in weighted caissons, and eleven galleys lie moored, some under awnings that sheltered the convicts who lived aboard. At the centre floats the port's flagship under the white flag. Researchers have identified her as the Solide, and the lateen barque in the right foreground as the Hirondelle.
The real ship The Solide served from 1750 as the flagship of the port of Toulon; commanded by an officer, she controlled access to the Old Port and hosted the councils that ran the naval base. The Hirondelle was a lateen-rigged barque. Eleven galleys, some housing convicts aboard, lie moored in the view.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Louvre
Royal and state ships · Painting
The French fleet and shipping in the roadstead of Toulon Unnamed
View of the Town and Roadstead of Toulon (La Ville et la Rade de Toulon), 1756
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 8297)
Medium Oil on canvas
The second view of Toulon is a panorama from the heights of Mont Faron down to the port, showing what made the place a great war port: a roadstead naturally sheltered from outside eyes and from the prevailing winds. The great roadstead lies far left in the distance, two walled darses shelter the ships behind their bastions, and in the foreground a Provençal country house celebrates the sweetness of life on the hillside. Signed at Toulon in 1756, the original hangs in the Louvre, while the Toulon museum shows a full-size copy that took ten years and 24,000 hours to paint.
“La rade de Toulon est la plus belle et la plus excellente de la mer Méditerranée, de l'avis de toutes les nations.”
The vessels Toulon was the base of the French Mediterranean fleet; its two darses (enclosed basins) sheltered warships under the guns of the fortifications. The ships in the view are not named.
Sources Louvre · Musée national de la Marine · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Cambridge and HMS Royal George Named ship
The 'Royal George' at Deptford Showing the Launch of the 'Cambridge', 1757
Artist John Cleveley the Elder (c. 1712 to 1777)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection (BHC3602)
Medium Oil on canvas
Cleveley worked as a shipwright in Deptford's Royal Dockyard and painted the yard he knew. Here the new Cambridge is floated out of the double dry dock where she was built, on 21 October 1755, while the Royal George, in truth launched a year later at Woolwich, lies at anchor beside her. A ceremonial barge with trumpeters, an Admiralty yacht, a Dutch coaster and a Thames lighter crowd the river below the Master Shipwright's house, and two figures wave their hats. Cleveley bent the facts to bring the navy's new ships into one triumphant day.
The real ship HMS Cambridge, an 80-gun third-rate built at Deptford Dockyard and launched on 21 October 1755, served in the expedition against Guadeloupe and at the taking of Havana in 1762, and later became the guardship at Plymouth. The 100-gun Royal George, shown beside her, was launched at Woolwich in 1756.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Cleveley the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day, 1760
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (DPG599)
Medium Oil on canvas
A late work, inscribed by Canaletto on the back of the canvas in 1760. The Bucintoro lies at the quay near San Marco on Ascension Day, the day the Doge cast a gold ring into the water to mark Venice's connection with the sea and its power over it. For Dulwich the ceremony was at once religious and political, and it drew great crowds along the canals to watch, to shop at the market stalls in the Piazza and to celebrate. At the centre of it all is the ship, gilded from end to end.
“the entire length of the Bucintoro (thirty-five metres) was covered in gold leaf”
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk · treccani.it
Royal and state ships · Painting
A ship of the line on the stocks and a ship hove down for careening at Rochefort Unnamed
View of the Port of Rochefort, taken from the Magasin des Colonies (Vue du port de Rochefort, prise du Magasin des colonies), 1762 to 1763
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (INV 8306, deposit of the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
Vernet took this view of the royal dockyard one morning from the Magasin des Colonies, the warehouse for goods coming from and going to the colonies. The Royal Ropeworks run along the right; in the distance a fire burns under a ship hove down for careening and a warship rises on the stocks. In front, hemp is landed for the ropewalk and coils of rope are carried to a ship. The town appears only as the bell tower of Saint-Louis. At the Salon of 1763 Diderot called the picture very beautiful, holding artists' attention by the very thanklessness of its subject.
“il fixe l'attention des artistes par l'ingratitude du sujet”
The vessels Rochefort was a royal dockyard of the French navy, whose Royal Ropeworks made the cordage for the fleet and whose Magasin des Colonies stored goods to and from the colonies. The ships shown, one on the stocks and one careening, are not named.
Sources Louvre · Wikipedia (FR) · fr.wikisource.org
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Departure of the Bucintoro, c. 1765 to 1780
Artist Francesco Guardi (1712 to 1793)
Where to see it Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon
Medium Oil on canvas
Guardi combines two Venetian themes here: a sweeping view of the quay with its famous buildings, set along a gentle diagonal to the left, and the departure of the Bucintoro, which dominates the right of the canvas under a red and gold banner bearing the winged lion of Saint Mark. Gondolas and boats of every kind accompany the barge on her route. The Gulbenkian Guardis were acquired between 1907 and 1921, and here his loose, expressive brushwork turns a state ceremony into a city of light and water with its ship at the centre.
“The Bucintoro, the Doge's ceremonial galley, symbolised the Republic's maritime power and was used for official ceremonies like the celebration of Ascension Day”
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources museothyssen.org · treccani.it
Image: Francesco Guardi; photo Sailko, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMS Royal Oak Named ship
George III Reviewing the Fleet at Spithead, 22 June 1773, Depicting HMS 'Royal Oak'
Artist John Cleveley the Younger (1747 to 1786)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH9497)
Medium Watercolour
One of a set of three watercolours of the great review at Spithead in June 1773, at which the young Cleveley was almost certainly present. George III took great interest in the event and stayed at Portsmouth for several days. Cleveley, son of the marine painter John Cleveley and twin brother of the marine artist Robert, gives the Royal Oak her place in the assembled fleet, a king's review recorded by a painter barely in his twenties.
The real ship HMS Royal Oak was one of the ships of the line assembled at Spithead for George III's review of June 1773.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Cleveley the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Oiseau Named ship
The Outer Harbour of Brest (L'Avant port de Brest), 1773
Artist Henri-Joseph van Blarenberghe (1750 to 1826)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1978.493)
Medium Oil on canvas
Vernet's royal series of French ports was abandoned before he reached Brest, and the secretary of state for the navy briefly revived the project by engaging Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe. He worked from gouaches of the harbour and naval facilities made in the first months of 1773, helped by his son Henri, who most likely painted this canvas. At its heart is a ship called the Oiseau, being readied for sea by convicts in red uniform, bound for France's Indian Ocean colonies, where, the Met reminds us, enslaved labour fed the finances of the mother country. The orderly harbour carries that hard truth beneath its polish.
The real ship The Oiseau was a French vessel fitting out at Brest in 1773 for a voyage to France's colonies in the Indian Ocean; the Met records that convicts in red uniform were readying her for sea.
Image: Henri-Joseph van Blarenberghe, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Departure of the Bucintoro for the Lido on Ascension Day (Le Départ du Bucentaure vers le Lido de Venise, le jour de l'Ascension), c. 1775 to 1780
Artist Francesco Guardi (1712 to 1793)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 20009)
Medium Oil on canvas
Part of Guardi's series of twelve paintings of the ceremonies organised in 1763 for the election of Doge Alvise IV Mocenigo, ten of which are in the Louvre. The series, painted between 1775 and 1780, was based on Brustolon's engravings after drawings by Canaletto, yet Guardi's flickering touch turns the procession into something fleeting. Painted barely two decades before the Republic fell, the barge setting out for the Lido reads as a last bright parade of a state that would soon lose both its ship and its independence.
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources Louvre · pop.culture.gouv.fr · treccani.it
Image: Francesco Guardi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Venerable Named ship
Launch of the 'Venerable', 74 Guns, at Blackwall, 1784
Artist Francis Holman (1729 to 1784)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Green Blackwall Collection (BHC1869)
Medium Oil on canvas
Holman paints John Perry's yard, later Green's, at Blackwall on the north bank of the Thames below Greenwich, in what was probably its greatest year, when Perry had three 74-gun ships and two 44s building for the navy as well as an East Indiaman and a West Indiaman. The picture has long been known as the launch of the Venerable, and the new warship is the reason for the day. A launch picture celebrates craft as much as war, and Holman lets us feel the pride of a private yard building for the fleet.
The real ship HMS Venerable, a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line, was launched on 19 April 1784 at Blackwall Yard.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Queen Charlotte Named ship
The 'Queen Charlotte' at the Review at Spithead, 1790
Artist William Anderson (1757 to 1837)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2260)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lord Howe's new flagship fires a salute in honour of the admiral, who is being rowed over in his barge in the foreground, while other warships lie at anchor as far as the horizon to show the strength of the navy. Anderson, a Scot who trained as a shipwright, painted under the strong influence of the seventeenth-century Dutch masters. The picture has long been called a royal review, though Greenwich suggests it more likely shows ships of the Channel Fleet at Portsmouth during the Spanish Armament crisis of 1790, a navy on show at a moment of threatened war.
The real ship HMS Queen Charlotte, a first-rate launched at Chatham on 15 April 1790, was Howe's flagship at the Glorious First of June in 1794 and the mutineers' flagship during the Spithead mutiny of 1797. She caught fire and was lost off Capraia on 17 March 1800.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William Anderson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bretagne and Républicain Named ship
View of the Interior of the Port of Brest (Vue de l'intérieur du port de Brest), 1794
Artist Jean-François Hue (1751 to 1823)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris, on deposit at the Musée national de la Marine, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
Vernet's royal series of ports was left unfinished, and in 1791 the Constituent Assembly charged his pupil Hue with completing it, now including Brest, with 10,000 livres for the task. Hue took his view from the east bank of the Penfeld near the Pontaniou dry dock, and among the crowded masts two great ships of the line can be picked out, the Bretagne and the Républicain. The tricolour flags were probably not in the first version, but added before the canvas went to the Salon of 1795: a fleet repainted for a new regime.
The real ship Brest, on the river Penfeld, was the great Atlantic naval harbour of France. The Bretagne and the Républicain, both identifiable in the picture, were ships of the line of the French navy at Brest in the revolutionary years.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée national de la Marine, Paris, where the original is kept. Photo: Freepenguin, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
The Channel Fleet at Spithead Unnamed
Royal Visit to the Fleet at Spithead, 26 June 1794, c. 1800
Artist Robert Cleveley (1747 to 1809)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0475)
Medium Oil on panel
The same royal visit that Briggs made into a quarterdeck drama, Robert Cleveley painted as weather. In this small panel the sea and cloudy sky merge in pale greys, and the smoke of the salutes blurs the horizon and hides the official ceremony, pushed far into the background. Onlookers watch from a small vessel in the left foreground across the calm water. The museum sees an atmospheric treatment of a formal subject, and it feels true to anyone who has watched a fleet fire a salute: the ships vanish in their own smoke.
“Smoke from the salutes being fired blurs the horizon and hides the official action”
The vessels The fleet that had fought the Glorious First of June under Howe lay at Spithead in June 1794, when George III came aboard the flagship Queen Charlotte to present Howe with a diamond sword.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Robert Cleveley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Commerce de Marseille Named ship
Le Commerce de Marseille, French Ship of 118 Guns (Le Commerce de Marseille, Vaisseau Français de 118 Canons), 1801
Artist Gaetano Canali and John Sewell
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH9410)
Medium Engraving and etching, coloured
Dubbed the finest ship of the century, the Commerce de Marseille was paid for by a gift from the Marseille chamber of commerce and built at Toulon to the plans of Jacques-Noël Sané. She never fought for France. She came under British control at the Siege of Toulon in 1793, and when the French retook the city she left the harbour for Portsmouth. This print of 1801 shows her moored in placid water with her sails closely furled, the French flag still at her mizzen, a lost French pride held up to British eyes as a portrait.
The real ship Laid down at the Toulon Arsenal in September 1786 and launched on 7 August 1788, she came under British control at the Siege of Toulon in 1793, was used briefly as a storeship, was badly damaged in a storm in 1795, and lay as a hulk at Portsmouth until broken up in February 1802.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
Nelson's funeral barge Unnamed
Nelson's Funeral Procession on the Thames, 9 January 1806, 1807
Artist Daniel Turner
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC0569)
Medium Oil on canvas
After lying in state at the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, Nelson was carried up the Thames to Whitehall Stairs on a black-canopied funeral barge, accompanied by more than sixty boats, among them the barge of the Lord Mayor and the Admiralty and City livery barges. Inside lay four coffins, the innermost made from the mainmast of the French flagship L'Orient, destroyed at the Nile. Turner's panorama turns the river into a cortège, the whole maritime City of London following the admiral on the water.
The vessels Nelson's body travelled on a black-canopied funeral barge, escorted by more than sixty boats including the Lord Mayor's barge and the Admiralty and City livery barges, the ceremonial rowing craft of the Thames.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Painting
USS Franklin Named ship
The U.S. Ship Franklin, with a View of the Bay of New York, 1820s or 1830s
Artist Thomas Thompson (1775 to 1852)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (54.90.289)
Medium Oil on canvas
Thompson sets the ship of the line Franklin at the heart of New York Bay, the Stars and Stripes at her stern and a blue flag with stars at the main, surrounded by merchant ships, sloops and small boats, with a round fort on the shore at left. Built at Philadelphia in 1815 and named for Benjamin Franklin, she served as flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron and returned to New York in April 1820, later leading the Pacific Squadron. The painting is a portrait of a young navy's pride: the great two-decker riding among the commerce she was built to protect.
The real ship USS Franklin, a 74-gun ship of the line, was the first vessel laid down at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and was launched in August 1815; flagship in the Mediterranean (1817 to 1820) and the Pacific (1821 to 1824), she became a receiving ship at Boston and was broken up at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1852.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMY Royal George Named ship
The Embarkation of His Majesty George the Fourth on Board the 'Royal George' Yacht off Greenwich, 10 August 1822
Artist John Thomas Serres (1759 to 1825)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAI7705)
Medium Watercolour
Signed and dated, Serres's wide watercolour shows George IV embarking from a royal barge at Greenwich Hospital onto the yacht Royal George, bound for Edinburgh on 10 August 1822. It was the first visit to Scotland by a reigning monarch since 1651, and its success, orchestrated largely by Sir Walter Scott, began a lasting royal love affair with Scottish history and scenery. Steam vessels attended the squadron, so the old sailing yacht leads a procession that already hints at the coming age.
The real ship The Royal George was the royal yacht that carried George IV to Scotland in 1822; twenty years later she carried Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Edinburgh.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: John Thomas Serres, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
A Russian squadron at anchor in the Elsinore roads Unnamed
A Russian Fleet at Anchor off Elsinore (En russisk flåde til ankers på Helsingørs red), 1826
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS1671)
Medium Oil on canvas
A whole foreign fleet lies at anchor in the roads of Elsinore: a line of Russian ships of the line and frigates, some with sails loosened, while a small open sailing boat runs past in the foreground and a ship under Danish colours gets under way to the right. Eckersberg studied such ships closely in these years, borrowing technical drawings from the naval dockyard for his portrait of the Asow. Here the interest is the fleet as a whole, a floating city of masts beneath a high, bright summer sky, the Sound choppy and alive.
The vessels The ships are warships of the Imperial Russian Navy at anchor in the roads of Elsinore in 1826; they are not individually identified.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Two Russian ships of the line Unnamed
Two Russian Ships of the Line Saluting (To russiske linjeskibe som saluterer), 1827
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS1663)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eckersberg studied Russian warships closely in these years, borrowing technical drawings from the naval dockyard for his pictures of them. Here two Russian ships of the line fire a salute, white smoke bursting from their sides beneath a towering summer cloud, the St Andrew's ensign flying; the nearer ship, under topsails, shows her ornate stern lettered CONSTANTIN, and more ships lie on the horizon. A salute is a courtesy between ships and nations, and the painting shares that courtesy: exact, luminous and calm. It was bought from the artist by the Danish naval officer Levin Jørgen Rohde.
The vessels The two warships are sailing ships of the line of the Imperial Russian Navy flying the St Andrew's ensign; the stern of the nearer is lettered CONSTANTIN.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Azov (Asow) Named ship
The Russian Ship of the Line 'Asow' and a Frigate at Anchor in the Roads of Elsinore, 1828
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark), Copenhagen
Medium Oil on canvas
Eckersberg prepared this picture meticulously, studying the ship types beforehand, borrowing technical drawings from the naval dockyard and recording the work in his diary. Yet the scene is a construction built from more than one event: he had inspected such ships at Copenhagen and moved them to Elsinore, with Kronborg behind. His subject was Azov, hailed as the best ship in the Russian navy, which had spearheaded the Russian squadron at Navarino the year before; five of her officers, among them Nakhimov and Kornilov, became admirals. Eckersberg gives her a calm, exact dignity at anchor.
The real ship Built at Arkhangelsk and launched in June 1826 under Mikhail Lazarev, Azov led the Russian squadron at Navarino on 20 October 1827 and was heavily damaged; she returned to Kronstadt in 1830 badly decayed and was broken up in 1831.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Queen Charlotte Named ship
Visit of George III to Howe's Flagship, the 'Queen Charlotte', 26 June 1794, 1828
Artist Henry Perronet Briggs (1793 to 1844)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection (BHC0476)
Medium Oil on canvas
After the Glorious First of June, the first great naval battle of the French Revolutionary War, the king came aboard the victorious flagship. On the quarterdeck of the Queen Charlotte, George III presents Lord Howe with a diamond sword, while Queen Charlotte stands to the left in yellow silk with a red petticoat among the royal family. Briggs painted the scene in 1828, a generation later, and the ship becomes a stage: her deck the setting for the moment a nation thanked its admiral.
The real ship HMS Queen Charlotte, a first-rate launched at Chatham on 15 April 1790, was Howe's flagship at the Glorious First of June in 1794. She caught fire and was lost off Capraia on 17 March 1800.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Henry Perronet Briggs, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Danish frigates and a paddle steamer Named ship
The Roads of Copenhagen on 1 May 1832 (Københavns red 1. mai 1832)
Artist C. W. Eckersberg (1783 to 1853)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design, Oslo (NG.M.04265)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eckersberg was a passenger on the paddle steamer on 1 May 1832, and his diary records the frigates held at anchor by bad weather until the wind eased in the afternoon and they could begin their voyage north. From his notes and sketches he made several paintings of the episode. Here a frigate with her crew manning the yards fires a salute, smoke rolling across the water, while the red and white steamer, dressed in Danish flags, comes up in the foreground. The museum sees the steamer as a new era for Denmark as a seafaring nation, set against the old navy of sail.
“the frigates were supposed to have set sail early in the morning, but bad weather hindered them from leaving the safety of their anchorage”
The real ship The sailing warships are Danish naval frigates of the early nineteenth century at anchor in the roads of Copenhagen; the paddle steamer in the foreground, on which Eckersberg was a passenger, stands for the coming of steam to the Danish seas.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikimedia Commons
Image: C. W. Eckersberg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bucintoro Named ship
The Arrival of the Bucintoro at San Nicolò al Lido, c. 1840
Artist Giuseppe Bernardino Bison (1762 to 1844)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Sotheby's, 2026)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bison painted the Bucintoro around 1840, some four decades after the French had destroyed her, working from Brustolon's engraving after a drawing by Canaletto, published between 1766 and 1774. The small canvas shows the barge arriving at San Nicolò al Lido for the ceremony in which the Doge cast a golden ring into the sea. Painted late in the life of a painter born in 1762, it is a picture of memory: the ship and the Republic were both gone, and only art kept the ceremony alive.
The real ship The last Bucintoro was built at the Venetian Arsenale under the naval architect Stefano Conti, with carving by Antonio Corradini; launched on 12 January 1728, she first served at the Marriage of the Sea in May 1729. About 35 metres long, with 42 oars pulled by 168 rowers chosen from the Arsenale workers, she was destroyed by the French in 1798, her carvings burnt on San Giorgio Maggiore and her hull finally broken up in 1824.
Sources sothebys.com · treccani.it
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows San Nicolò al Lido, Venice. Photo: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the sale record
Royal and state ships · Print
Belle Poule and Favorite Named ship
La Belle Poule: the Division Becalmed below the Line (La Belle Poule, division encalminée sous la ligne), after November 1840
Artist Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager (1814 to 1879)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH0858)
Medium Lithograph
Durand-Brager sailed with the expedition that brought Napoleon's remains home from Saint Helena and made many images of the Retour des cendres. Here the frigate Belle Poule, painted black for the occasion, and her companion, the corvette Favorite, are shown in several positions, becalmed south of the equator. A white windsail rigged amidships ventilates the lower decks, which Greenwich finds apt given her cargo. Her guns are run out: on the passage north the Prince de Joinville, fearing war with Britain, readied his ship for action on or shortly after 31 October.
“perhaps particularly apposite in this case given the nature of the ship's cargo”
The real ship Belle Poule, a Surveillante-class 60-gun first-rank frigate begun in 1828 and launched in 1834, was one of the first ships built in a covered slip, to a design inspired by USS Constitution. Commanded by the Prince de Joinville and painted black, she sailed in July 1840 for Saint Helena and carried Napoleon's remains back to Cherbourg.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Belle Poule and her boats Named ship
Saint Helena: the Mole of Jamestown, seen from the Garden of the Governor's House at the Moment of the Ceremony (Ste Hélène. Môle de James Town, vue prise du jardin de l'Hôtel du Gouverneur et au moment de la cérémonie), 1840s
Artist Jean-Baptiste Henri Durand-Brager (1814 to 1879)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH3034)
Medium Lithograph
On 15 October 1840, in pouring rain, Napoleon's coffin was brought down to Jamestown while the citadel and the Belle Poule fired guns in turn and the forts fired minute guns. The procession passed between two lines of garrison soldiers with arms reversed and halted at the head of the mole, where the aged and very sick Major General Middlemore met the Prince de Joinville; a brief exchange in halting French handed the body back to France. The coffin was lowered into the launch, and the French ships struck their signs of mourning and hoisted their colours. Durand-Brager, who sailed with the expedition, recorded the moment from the Governor's garden.
The real ship Belle Poule, a 60-gun frigate painted black for the voyage, carried Napoleon's remains from Saint Helena to Cherbourg, where on 8 December 1840 they were transferred to the steamer Normandie for the journey to Le Havre and up the Seine.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Print
HMS Trafalgar (1841) Named ship
The Launch of the Trafalgar, in the Presence of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria and His Royal Highness Prince Albert, at H.M. Dock Yard, Woolwich, 1842
Artist William Ranwell
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAI6689)
Medium Linen-backed lithograph
On 21 June 1841 the Trafalgar left the slip at Woolwich in the presence of the young Queen and Prince Albert. At the Queen's request she was launched by Charlotte, Lady Bridport, Nelson's niece, and her figurehead was a bust of the admiral himself. Ranwell's lithograph brought the day to those who missed it: a launch as national festival, the navy's newest three-decker taking to the Thames under the name of its most famous victory.
The real ship Laid down at Woolwich Dockyard in December 1829 and launched on 21 June 1841, the Trafalgar was a 120-gun, three-deck first-rate. She was sold for scrap in 1906, and her Nelson figurehead stands at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Queen Named ship
Queen Victoria's Visit to HMS 'Queen' at Portsmouth, 1 March 1842
Artist Robert Strickland Thomas
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Nelson Ward Collection (BHC0629)
Medium Oil on canvas
Ordered as the Royal Frederick, the great three-decker was renamed on the stocks on 12 April 1839 in honour of the recently crowned queen. Three years later Victoria came to see her namesake at Portsmouth with Prince Albert, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and his two sons, Prince Augustus and Prince Leo, and Lieutenant Thomas recorded the day. It is a picture of the navy honouring its sovereign, a first-rate bearing her title, visited by the woman in whose reign sail would give way to steam.
The real ship HMS Queen, a 110-gun first-rate launched at Portsmouth on 15 May 1839, was renamed in honour of Queen Victoria while still on the stocks. She took part in the bombardment of Sevastopol on 17 October 1854, was fitted with an auxiliary steam engine in 1858 to 1859 and was broken up in 1871.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Robert Strickland Thomas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMY Royal George Named ship
Visit of Queen Victoria to Edinburgh, 1842: Arrival of the Royal Yacht Royal George at her Anchorage off Inchkeith at Midnight, 31 August 1842
Artist John Wilson Carmichael (1799 to 1868)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF6096)
Medium Graphite, pen and brown wash
Carmichael signed and dated this drawing of the royal yacht Royal George arriving at her anchorage off Inchkeith at midnight on 31 August 1842, bringing Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Edinburgh. A royal arrival usually meant bunting and salutes; here it is a ship coming to anchor in the night, a private moment in a public journey, recorded to the very hour. Twenty years before, the same yacht had brought George IV to Scotland.
The real ship The Royal George was the royal yacht that carried George IV to Scotland in 1822 and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Edinburgh in 1842.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
Muiron Named ship
Bonaparte Arriving in France on his Return from Egypt, 9 October 1799 (Arrivée en France de Bonaparte au retour d'Égypte le 9 octobre 1799), 1843
Artist Louis Meijer (1809 to 1866)
Where to see it Château de Versailles (MV 1438)
Medium Oil on canvas
The frigate in this picture carried a future emperor. After the Battle of the Nile, Bonaparte left Egypt aboard the Muiron, under Admiral Ganteaume's flag, and landed in France on 9 October 1799. Napoleon never forgot the ship: in 1807 he ordered her preserved as a monument for several hundred years, with a gilded inscription on her hull, and a finely made model of her stood in his study at Malmaison. The Dutch marine painter Louis Meijer, settled in Paris from 1841, showed this large canvas at the Salon of 1843; it now hangs at Versailles.
“I wish that the Muiron on which I came back from Egypt be kept as a monument”
The real ship Muiron was one of two 18-pounder frigates found on the stocks at the Venice Arsenal in 1796, launched in August 1797 and named after Bonaparte's aide Colonel Muiron. After carrying Bonaparte home she fought at Algeciras, was preserved at Toulon, decommissioned at the Restoration and destroyed in 1850; Napoleon's model of her is in the Musée national de la Marine.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMY Victoria and Albert (1843) Named ship
Louis Philippe Taking Leave of Queen Victoria on Board the Royal Yacht, 1843
Artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805 to 1873)
Where to see it Royal Collection, London (RCIN 920029)
Medium Watercolour
This is the royal yacht from the inside: Queen Victoria's cabin aboard the Victoria and Albert, where King Louis-Philippe and the French royal family took their leave after the Queen and Prince Albert had been their guests at the Château d'Eu from 2 to 7 September 1843. It was the first time Queen Victoria had travelled abroad. Winterhalter catches the warmth of a royal friendship made on land and closed at sea, in the private rooms of the ship that carried her.
The real ship The first royal yacht named Victoria and Albert carried the Queen and Prince Albert to Normandy for her first journey abroad, the visit to Louis-Philippe at the Château d'Eu in September 1843.
Sources Royal Collection · Wikidata
Image: Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
HMY Royal George Named ship
The Royal George Yacht Conveying Her Majesty and Royal Consort to Edinburgh, August 1842, off the Bass Rock, 1843
Artist William John Huggins (1781 to 1845)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH8903)
Medium Hand-coloured aquatint
Dedicated to Prince Albert, Huggins's print shows the sailing yacht Royal George carrying the Queen and her consort to Edinburgh in August 1842, off the Bass Rock, joined by the General Steam Navigation Company's ships Trident and Monarch. Twenty years earlier the same yacht had carried George IV to Scotland. Here the royal sail keeps company with steamers, and the new royal steam yacht Victoria and Albert would be launched the following April: the print records a sailing royal yacht on the threshold of the steam age.
The real ship The Royal George was the royal yacht that carried George IV to Scotland in 1822 and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Edinburgh in 1842.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMY Victoria and Albert (1843) Named ship
Visit of Queen Victoria to Le Tréport (Visite de la reine Victoria au Tréport), 1844
Artist Eugène Isabey (1803 to 1886)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 57)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 2 September 1843 Queen Victoria arrived at Le Tréport for her first journey abroad, a week as guest of King Louis-Philippe at the Château d'Eu, and she came in the new royal steam yacht Victoria and Albert, launched only that April. Isabey makes the arrival a spectacle: the black paddle steamer under a great red ensign, a canopied barge alongside, rowing boats crowding in and guns firing salutes in clouds of smoke. The yacht, the first royal yacht to be steam-powered, is the herald of a new age of diplomacy by steam.
The real ship HMY Victoria and Albert, a twin-paddle steamer designed by William Symonds and laid down at Pembroke Dock, was launched on 25 April 1843 as the first royal yacht to be steam-powered. Renamed Osborne in 1855, when a new Victoria and Albert entered service, she was scrapped in 1868.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikidata · Royal Collection · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Print
America (schooner yacht, 1851) Named ship
The Clipper Yacht "America": Built by Mr. George Steers of New York for John C. Stevens, Esq. and Associates of the New York Yacht Club, c. 1851 to 1852
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876), for Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.95)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
A syndicate of New York Yacht Club members led by Commodore John Cox Stevens built America to show off American shipbuilding and to win money racing abroad. On 22 August 1851 she beat the Royal Yacht Squadron's fleet round the Isle of Wight, and the prize was later renamed the America's Cup in her honour. Nathaniel Currier, seeing the commercial appeal, issued several lithographs of the victory; in this one Fanny Palmer presents the suddenly famous schooner as a national heroine. She was sold ten days after the race.
The real ship Designed by George Steers and launched at William H. Brown's yard in New York on 3 May 1851, America won the Royal Yacht Squadron's race round the Isle of Wight on 22 August 1851 and was sold ten days later. After service as a Confederate blockade runner, a Union blockader and a Naval Academy training ship, her decayed remains were scrapped in 1945.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
America (schooner yacht, 1851) Named ship
The Yacht "America" Winning the International Race, 1851
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Peabody Essex Museum, Salem (M4696)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 22 August 1851 the New York schooner America sailed round the Isle of Wight and beat the Royal Yacht Squadron's fleet, winning the cup later renamed in her honour. Lane based his picture closely on Thomas Dutton's lithograph after an on-the-spot drawing by Oswald Brierly, darkening the foreground water and giving the sky a more dramatic bank of cloud. The Needles stand on the horizon; only one cutter is anywhere near America as she runs wing and wing for the finish, while the passengers of a small pleasure boat raise their hats and cheer.
“Only one cutter (left) is anywhere near ‘America’ as she romps, with her sails wing and wing, to the finish line.”
The real ship America was designed by George Steers and launched at William H. Brown's yard in New York on 3 May 1851 for a New York Yacht Club syndicate led by Commodore John Cox Stevens. Her victory in the Royal Yacht Squadron's race round the Isle of Wight gave its name to the America's Cup; she was sold ten days later, and after a long career on both sides of the Atlantic her remains were scrapped in 1945.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · Wikipedia · The Met
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Napoléon Named ship
Arrival of the Prince President in the Roadstead of Toulon, 1852 (Arrivée du Prince Président en rade de Toulon), c. 1852 to 1860
Artist Barthélemy Lauvergne (1805 to 1871)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 23)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1852 Louis Napoléon, then Prince-President, came to Toulon, and the navy showed him the ship that now bore his family's name. The Napoléon, designed by Dupuy de Lôme and launched in 1850, was the first purpose-built steam battleship in the world and the first screw ship of the line; on trials in 1852 she made nearly 14 knots. Lauvergne, a Toulon painter who had sailed round the world three times, first as Dumont d'Urville's secretary on the Astrolabe, was sent to Toulon to paint the Prince-President's visit aboard her.
“I still laugh about it”
The real ship Ordered in 1847 as the Prince de Joinville, renamed 24 Février under the Second Republic and Napoléon in May 1850, a few days after her launch, she was the lead ship of a class of nine 90-gun screw battleships. Her performance in the Crimean War attracted great attention; she was broken up in 1886.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Barthélemy Lauvergne, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMS Duke of Wellington and HMY Victoria and Albert Named ship
Her Majesty's Visit to the Flagship, 11 August 1853, Showing 'Duke of Wellington' and 'Victoria & Albert', c. 1853
Artist William Adolphus Knell (1801 to 1875)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF6120)
Medium Watercolour
The grand review at Spithead on 11 August 1853 was intended to show the application of steam to naval warfare, and the Illustrated London News called it a national show. The Queen, Prince Albert and two of their sons came down the Solent in the royal yacht Victoria and Albert and went aboard the Duke of Wellington, the Channel Fleet's flagship of 131 guns, before a mock engagement and chase were staged. Knell sets the paddle yacht beside the great screw three-decker: the Crown and the navy, both under steam.
“intended to demonstrate the application of steam to naval warfare”
The real ship The Duke of Wellington, laid down as the Windsor Castle and launched on 14 September 1852, was converted to screw propulsion while still building; a 131-gun first-rate, she led the Baltic Fleet in the Crimean War and was sold to be broken up in 1904. The Victoria and Albert of 1843 was the first steam-powered royal yacht.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Print
Una, Ray and L'Esperance (racing yachts) Named ship
Regatta of the New York Yacht Club, June 1st, 1854: Rounding the S.W. Spit
Artist After James E. Buttersworth (1817 to 1894); drawn on stone by Charles Parsons; published by Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.76)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph printed in two colours, with gum arabic
Made in the year of the race, this print records the New York Yacht Club regatta of 1 June 1854 at the moment the fleet rounds the South West Spit. A key of names beneath the image lets the viewer pick out Una, shown broadside at the centre with her whole crew scrambling at the sails to stay ahead of a long line of yachts receding into the distance. The club's records name Una the winner, followed by Ray and L'Esperance. Buttersworth's composition, drawn on stone by Charles Parsons, catches the urgency of a crew working a yacht round the mark.
The real ship Una, Ray and L'Esperance were yachts racing in the New York Yacht Club regatta of 1 June 1854; the club's records give Una as the winner, with Ray second and L'Esperance third.
Image: After James E. Buttersworth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Henrietta, Fleetwing and Vesta (schooner yachts) Named ship
The Great Ocean Yacht Race between the Henrietta, Fleetwing and Vesta: The "Good Bye" to the Yacht Club Steamer "River Queen", 4 Miles East of Sandy Hook Light Ship, Dec. 11th, 1866, 1867
Artist After Charles Parsons (1821 to 1910); Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.94)
Medium Lithograph, printed in colour
Ocean yacht racing began with a wager made one October evening in 1866, when three wealthy New York owners bet 30,000 dollars each on a race across the winter Atlantic, from Sandy Hook to the Isle of Wight. The print shows the three schooners taking leave of the club steamer River Queen four miles east of the Sandy Hook lightship on 11 December. The crossing cost lives aboard Fleetwing. James Gordon Bennett Jr.'s Henrietta won, arriving on Christmas Day after thirteen days and twenty-two hours.
The real ship Henrietta was a 205-ton keel schooner modelled by William Tooker and launched by Henry Steers at Greenpoint in May 1861 for James Gordon Bennett Jr.; she served in the Revenue Marine during the Civil War and was lost off Roatán, Honduras, in 1872, her crew saved. Fleetwing and Vesta, owned by the Osgoods and Pierre Lorillard IV, were her New York Yacht Club rivals.
Image: After Charles Parsons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
River Queen Named ship
The Peacemakers, 1868
Artist George P. A. Healy (1813 to 1894)
Where to see it The White House, Washington, D.C.
Medium Oil on canvas
On 27 March 1865, aboard the steamer River Queen at City Point, Virginia, Lincoln met Grant, Sherman and Admiral Porter in the war's only three-way meeting of the president and his two great generals. Healy was not there; he worked from his own earlier portraits, photographs, sittings and Sherman's account of the meeting. The humble river steamer becomes a council chamber for the last days of the Civil War. The largest version burnt in 1893; this one has been in the White House collection since 1947.
“I shall never forget that council which met on board the River Queen.”
The real ship The River Queen was a side-wheel steamer built at Keyport, New Jersey, in 1864. She hosted the unsuccessful Hampton Roads peace conference on 3 February 1865 and the council of March 1865, later ran as a ferry to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket and as a Potomac excursion boat, and was destroyed by fire in 1911.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: George P. A. Healy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Magic (schooner yacht) and the fleet racing Cambria, 1870 Named ship
The Great International Yacht Race, August 8, 1870
Artist Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers (active 1857 to 1907)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.73)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
This print records the first challenge for the America's Cup, sailed in New York harbour. On 8 August 1870 the English yacht Cambria met seventeen American yachts on a forty-mile course from the Staten Island clubhouse round the South West Spit to the Sandy Hook lightship and back. The Met notes that the print was aimed at the well-to-do members of the New York Yacht Club. A two-masted schooner leads the fleet while the lightship flies twenty flags and pennants, and the margin names the winner: Magic, in 3 hours, 33 minutes and 54 seconds.
The real ship Magic, a racing schooner of the New York Yacht Club, was built as the sloop Madgie at Philadelphia in 1857 and later rerigged and rebuilt; she was the smallest yacht in the 1870 race and its winner. She passed through many owners, ended as a pilot boat at Key West and was wrecked there in a hurricane in 1922. Cambria represented the Royal Thames Yacht Club of London.
Image: Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Cambria (schooner yacht, 1868) Named ship
Royal Thames Yacht Club Schooner "Cambria", 199 Tons: James Ashbury, Esq., London and Brighton, Owner, 1870
Artist Charles Richard Parsons (1844 to 1918) and Lyman W. Atwater (1835 to 1891), for Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.5)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Currier and Ives here honour a British rival. In July 1870 James Ashbury's schooner Cambria raced James Gordon Bennett Jr.'s Dauntless across the Atlantic from Ireland to New York and, as the Met records, won by reaching the Sandy Hook lightship first, after 23 days, 5 hours and 17 minutes, one hour and 43 minutes ahead. On 8 August she became the first challenger for the America's Cup, finishing eighth as Magic won. The print shows her under full sail, a portrait of the yacht that opened the long line of British challenges.
The real ship Cambria was a 188-ton schooner built at Cowes by Michael Ratsey in 1868 for James Lloyd Ashbury. She won the Round the Isle of Wight race in 1869 and in 1870 became the first, unsuccessful, challenger for the America's Cup on behalf of the Royal Thames Yacht Club.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMS Devastation Named ship
HM Turret Ship 'Devastation' at Spithead on the Occasion of the Naval Review in Honour of the Shah of Persia, 23 June 1873, 1875
Artist Edward William Cooke (1811 to 1880)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection (BHC3287)
Medium Oil on canvas
When the Shah of Persia made his state visit in 1873 he was entertained in a style without precedent, and the navy staged a review at Spithead in his honour, the Shah watching from the royal yacht Victoria and Albert at the far left. Cooke gives the foreground to the Devastation, the first battleship built for the Royal Navy without sails. A review meant to impress a foreign monarch thus becomes a portrait of a revolution: the age of masts giving way to the turret and the funnel.
“the first battleship without sails to be built for the Royal Navy”
The real ship HMS Devastation led the first class of ocean-going capital ships built without sails, with her main armament carried in turrets on top of the hull rather than inside it. She was sold for breaking up in 1908.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Edward William Cooke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Puritan (sloop, 1885) and Genesta (cutter, 1884) Named ship
The Puritan and Genesta on the Homestretch: In Their Second and Final International Race for "The America's Cup", Sept. 16th, 1885, Won by the Puritan
Artist After Franklyn Bassford (1857 to 1897); Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.16)
Medium Lithograph, printed in colour
The last leg of the deciding race of the 1885 America's Cup, sailed on 16 September. The Boston-built defender Puritan races home against Sir Richard Sutton's English cutter Genesta of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Genesta's designer, John Beavor Webb, had refused to let anyone see his yacht before the races, the start of a long tradition of secrecy. Prints such as this were drawn on stone, printed in monochrome and usually coloured by hand by women working for Currier and Ives at home, carrying the drama of the Cup into American parlours.
The real ship Puritan was designed by Edward Burgess and built by George Lawley and Son at South Boston, launched on 26 May 1885; she combined the depth of a cutter with the beam and power of a sloop. Genesta, oak planked on a steel frame, was designed by John Beavor Webb and built by D. and W. Henderson on the Clyde in 1884 for Sir Richard Sutton; she was broken up in 1900.
Image: After Franklyn Bassford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Bayard Named ship
The Return of Admiral Courbet's Remains to the Salins d'Hyères on the Bayard, 1885 (Retour des cendres de l'amiral Courbet aux Salins d'Hyères en 1885 sur le Bayard)
Artist Émile Mathon (1842 to 1899)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 216)
Medium Oil on canvas
Admiral Courbet, commander of the French squadron in the war with China, died of cholera aboard his flagship Bayard in the harbour of Makung in the Pescadores on 11 June 1885. The Bayard herself brought his body home, by Aden, Suez and Bône, reaching Toulon on 26 August, where a state funeral was held. Mathon, a pupil of Daubigny who painted warships and harbours among many subjects, shows the ironclad at the Salins d'Hyères at the end of her mournful voyage, a warship turned into a hearse carrying a nation's grief home across the sea.
The real ship Bayard, laid down in 1876 and launched on 27 March 1880, became Admiral Courbet's flagship in 1883 and served through the war with China, including the Pescadores campaign. She left the Pescadores on 23 June 1885 carrying Courbet's body, reached Toulon on 26 August, and later served with the reserve of the Mediterranean Squadron.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikidata
Royal and state ships · Print
Mayflower (sloop, 1886) and Galatea (cutter, 1885) Named ship
Mayflower Saluted by the Fleet: Crossing the Bow of "Galatea" in Their First Race for the "America's Cup" over the Inside Course, New York Bay, September 7th, 1886
Artist After Franklyn Bassford (1857 to 1897); Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.9)
Medium Lithograph, printed in colour
On 7 September 1886, in the first race of that year's America's Cup, the Boston sloop Mayflower crossed the bow of the British cutter Galatea and was saluted by the fleet. The print shows Mayflower at the head of a long line of yachts receding into the distance, with a steamship far off to the right. Galatea's owner, Lieutenant William Henn, had sailed her to New York with his wife, and a monkey called Peggy travelled on board as a mascot. Mayflower won both races.
The real ship Mayflower was designed by Edward Burgess, built of oak and hard pine by George Lawley and Son and launched in 1886 for General Charles J. Paine of Boston. Galatea was an all-metal gaff cutter designed by John Beavor Webb and launched in 1885 for Lieutenant William Henn of the Royal Northern Yacht Club.
Image: After Franklyn Bassford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Dvenadtsat Apostolov leading the Black Sea Fleet; the steam frigate Vladimir Named ship
Review of the Black Sea Fleet in 1849 (Smotr Chernomorskogo flota v 1849 godu), 1886
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Central Naval Museum, St Petersburg (Zh 41)
Medium Oil on canvas
Aivazovsky watched the review of 1849 on the Sevastopol roads as a companion of Nicholas I aboard the steam frigate Vladimir, and recreated it from memory in 1886. The line is led by the 120-gun Dvenadtsat Apostolov, followed by the 84-gun Rostislav, Sviatoslav and Yagudiil. In the lower right corner the Tsar takes the salute aboard the Vladimir, and at a respectful distance stand Admiral Lazarev with Kornilov, Nakhimov and Istomin. The painting is a memorial as much as a parade: four years later many of these ships fought at Sinop, and all were scuttled by their own crews in the defence of Sevastopol.
The real ship Dvenadtsat Apostolov, lead ship of a class of three first-rates, was completed in 1842 and served her whole career in the Black Sea; in the Crimean War her guns were landed, she served as a hospital ship and was sunk as a blockship at Sevastopol. Vladimir, built in London in 1848, won the first action between steamships in 1853 and was scuttled at Sevastopol in 1855.
Sources Wikipedia (RU) · Wikipedia
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Hoche Named ship
The Launch of the Battleship Hoche at Lorient in 1886 (Lancement du cuirassé Hoche à Lorient en 1886), 1887
Artist Alexandre Jean-Baptiste Brun (1853 to 1941)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (9 OA 911)
Medium Oil on canvas
On 29 September 1886 the battleship Hoche took the water at Lorient, where her keel had been laid five years before, and Brun, a Marseille painter trained under Cabanel and Carolus Duran, recorded the event the following year. She was a ship of transition: first designed as an answer to the very large Italian ironclads, then radically redesigned with her heavy guns in the lozenge arrangement that shaped a generation of French capital ships. Her large superstructure and low freeboard later caused serious stability problems that took extensive work to correct.
The real ship Hoche was ordered on 3 August 1880, laid down at Lorient in August 1881 and launched on 29 September 1886. She served in the Northern and Mediterranean Squadrons from 1890, visited Germany for the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in 1895, and was reconstructed from 1898 to 1901 to cure her stability problems.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Alexandre Jean-Baptiste Brun, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
Vigilant (1893) and Valkyrie II (1893) Named ship
Vigilant and Valkyrie in a "Thrash to Windward": In Their International Race for "The America's Cup", October 7th, 9th and 13th, 1893
Artist Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers (active 1857 to 1907)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (51.567.7)
Medium Lithograph, printed in colour
The eighth America's Cup of 1893, sailed off Sandy Hook in October. Nathanael Herreshoff's Vigilant, the first of his Cup winners, beats to windward ahead of Lord Dunraven's black-hulled Valkyrie II, her crew lined along the weather rail to keep her upright under full sail. A tugboat flying the American flag steams between them and a steamboat watches in the distance. The inscription records Vigilant's victory. By the 1890s, the Met notes, Currier and Ives printed such subjects in colour rather than colouring them by hand.
The real ship Vigilant was a steel and bronze centreboard sloop designed by Nathanael Greene Herreshoff and built in 1893 by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company at Bristol, Rhode Island. Valkyrie II was a gaff cutter designed by George Lennox Watson and built alongside the royal yacht Britannia by D. and W. Henderson on the Clyde for Lord Dunraven.
Image: Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMY Victoria and Albert II Named ship
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Review at Spithead, 26 June 1897, 1898
Artist Charles Dixon (1872 to 1934)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0645)
Medium Oil on canvas
At the Diamond Jubilee review the Prince of Wales stood in for his mother, reviewing a fleet that included 21 battleships and 56 cruisers from the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, seen on the right flying the Royal Standard. The review was an opportunity, in the museum's words, to show the importance of the nation's sea power, and the sheer number of battleships was taken as confirmation of supremacy. Dixon's painting shows the Victorian navy at its height, with the old royal yacht carrying the Crown among the warships.
“demonstrate the importance of the nation's sea power and to underscore the significance and responsibilities of Empire”
The real ship HMY Victoria and Albert, the second royal yacht of the name, was a paddle steamer launched at Pembroke Dock on 16 January 1855; Queen Victoria first cruised in her on 12 July 1855. She served as the sovereign's yacht until 1900 and was scrapped around 1904.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Warship launched at Portsmouth Dockyard, with HMS Victory beyond Unnamed
A Launch at Portsmouth, c. 1900 to 1910
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (PW2115)
Medium Graphite and watercolour
A rapid sketch made during a launch at Portsmouth Dockyard, probably in the first decade of the twentieth century. Wyllie looks south towards the entrance to the harbour, straight into the light, and in the right distance, small and still, lies HMS Victory. The new hull and the old flagship share one sheet of paper. The museum singles out his ability to capture the moment with considerable economy, and the drawing shows it: a crowded, fleeting event set down in a few strokes of graphite and wash.
“A rapid sketch made during a launch at Portsmouth Dockyard”
The vessels Portsmouth Dockyard launched many of the battleships and cruisers of the Edwardian navy; the ship sketched here is not identified. HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship, lay in Portsmouth harbour.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Royal and state ships · Drawing
HMY Alberta Named ship
HMY 'Alberta' Carrying the Remains of Queen Victoria, 1901
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH4066)
Medium Watercolour
Queen Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight on 22 January 1901, and her body was brought across the Solent to Portsmouth in the royal yacht Alberta, on its way to her funeral at Windsor. Wyllie watched the crossing from the flagship HMS Majestic. The drawing relates to his Royal Academy painting of that year, The Passing of a Great Queen, now in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and may be a study for it. It is the navy's farewell to its queen, set down by a man who was there.
The real ship HMY Alberta was the royal yacht that carried Queen Victoria's body from the Isle of Wight across the Solent to Portsmouth in 1901.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
HMY Alberta Named ship
The Passing of a Great Queen, 1901
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (WAG 128)
Medium Oil on canvas
Shown at the Royal Academy in 1901, the year of the Queen's death, this large canvas records the last crossing of Queen Victoria. In the late afternoon of 1 February the small royal yacht Alberta, carrying her body, comes into Gosport with the setting sun behind her, the royal standard at half-mast and destroyers escorting her. Anchored battleships fire their salutes, and behind follows the larger Victoria and Albert with King Edward VII aboard. Wyllie gives a modest paddle yacht the whole weight of a nation's farewell.
The real ship HMY Alberta was a wooden paddle steamer of 370 tons, launched at Pembroke Dock on 3 October 1863 as tender to the royal yacht Victoria and Albert and much used across the Solent to Osborne. On 1 February 1901 she carried Queen Victoria's coffin across the Solent into Gosport; she was sold for breaking up in 1913.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
SMY Hohenzollern (II) Named ship
The Kaiser's Yacht Hohenzollern under Escort on a Summer Cruise in Northern Waters, 1904
Artist Carl Saltzmann (1847 to 1923)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Oil on canvas
Saltzmann was close to Wilhelm II's court at sea. He had given the young prince drawing lessons, was taken on the new Kaiser's first northern voyage in 1888, and sailed on at least 22 of the Kaiser's summer cruises to the north. Here the long white Hohenzollern, three-masted and twin-funnelled, steams past a towering dark headland while waves break over the rocks in the foreground and two escorts follow in her wake. It is a court picture made by a man who knew these waters from the Kaiser's own deck: the imperial summer ritual of northern coasts.
The real ship Hohenzollern II was launched at AG Vulcan, Stettin, on 27 June 1892, 120 m long, and served as imperial yacht and aviso from 1893 to July 1914, carrying the Kaiser on his annual Norway cruises every year but 1906 from 1894 to 1914. She was put out of service at Kiel in July 1914, struck in 1920 and scrapped at Wilhelmshaven in 1923.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Drawing
Royal Louise Named ship
The Miniature Frigate Royal Louise on the Havel (Royal Louise auf der Havel), 1904
Artist Willy Stöwer (1864 to 1931)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Watercolour and gouache on paper
A full-rigged frigate on a Berlin lake: Stöwer paints the Royal Louise under a cloud of sail on the Havel, sailors in white on deck, the imperial ensign at her stern, while an excursion steamer, a tug, sailing boats and a barge share the water. She was a royal gift with a diplomatic history. After the victory over Napoleon, George III gave Frederick William III a small three-masted boat; when it decayed, William IV renewed the gift in 1832 with a one-third-scale copy of the frigate Thetis, named after Queen Louise. Carried up the Elbe and Havel on a barge with masts standing, she sailed there until 1914.
The real ship Laid down at a Royal Dockyard in 1831 as a 1:3 copy of the frigate Thetis and handed over on the Wannsee on 22 June 1832 by Lord Adolphus FitzClarence, she was based at Peacock Island and from 1841 at the sailors' station on the Jungfernsee near Potsdam, sailed until 1914 and was destroyed after 1945; a replica has sailed on the Havel since 1999.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Painting
Dannebrog Named ship
Prince Carl and Princess Maud Arriving in the Oslofjord as King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway in 1905
Artist Vilhelm Arnesen (1865 to 1948)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Bruun Rasmussen, Copenhagen, 2013)
Medium Oil on canvas
In November 1905 the Danish royal yacht Dannebrog left Denmark carrying Prince Carl and his family to Norway, where he would reign as King Haakon VII. Arnesen shows the paddle yacht steaming up the fjord in a blaze of sunset gold, a royal standard at her fore, escorted by the Danish warships Olfert Fischer and Geiser and joined by two Norwegian coastal defence ships, while flag-decked vessels crowd the water and men in a small boat in the foreground wave in welcome. The yacht carries more than a family: she carries a new nation's crown across the water.
The real ship Dannebrog was a Danish royal side-wheel paddle steam yacht launched on 6 October 1879 and commissioned in 1880; she took Prince Carl to Norway, leaving Denmark on 23 November 1905, was lengthened to 72 m in 1906 to 1907 and was decommissioned in 1931.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Vilhelm Arnesen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Royal and state ships · Print
SMY Hohenzollern (II) Named ship
A Solemn Ceremony aboard the Hohenzollern: Lowering the Flag at Sunset (Eine feierliche Handlung an Bord der Hohenzollern: Das Niederholen der Flagge bei Sonnenuntergang), 1912
Artist Willy Stöwer (1864 to 1931)
Medium Watercolour (known from a halftone reproduction)
Stöwer sailed with Wilhelm II on several of his voyages between 1905 and 1912, and this scene comes from the Kaiser's northern cruise of July 1912; he signed it aboard the yacht. On the long deck of the Hohenzollern men stand at attention with their backs to us, one saluting, as the ensign is lowered at sunset, masts and rigging rising above them and a mountain beyond; a warship waits in the distance. It is an intimate ritual of the imperial yacht, reproduced in print for readers at home, two summers before the yacht was put out of service.
The real ship Hohenzollern II, launched at Stettin in 1892, carried Wilhelm II on his annual cruises to Norway every year but 1906 from 1894 to 1914; she was put out of service at Kiel at the end of July 1914 and scrapped in 1923.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikipedia (DE)
Royal and state ships · Painting
Prince Royal Named ship
Embarkation at Margate of the Elector Palatine and Princess Elizabeth, undated
Artist Adam Willaerts (1577 to 1664)
Where to see it Royal Collection, London (RCIN 404994)
Medium Oil painting
In April 1613 Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I, left England with her new husband Frederick, Elector Palatine, sailing from Margate for Ostend in the Prince Royal, the great ship Phineas Pett had launched three years before. Willaerts, settled in Utrecht, painted ceremonial arrivals and departures in a bright, anecdotal style. Here the royal party gathers on the jetty among yeomen and courtiers while barges wait, and the great ship under the royal standard rides among the fleet: a princess's farewell to her country turned into a pageant of flags and ships.
“religious scenes involving ships as well as ceremonial arrivals and departures, all in a brightly coloured anecdotal style”
The real ship The Prince Royal was built by Phineas Pett at Woolwich and launched in 1610; Princess Elizabeth sailed in her from Margate to Ostend in April 1613. Rebuilt in 1639 to 1641 and renamed Resolution under the Commonwealth, she ran aground on the Galloper Sand in the Four Days' Battle of 1666 and was burnt on de Ruyter's orders to prevent her recapture.
Sources Royal Collection · Wikipedia
Royal and state ships · Painting
Royal yacht Anne and HMS Prince Named ship
Royal Visit to the Fleet in the Thames Estuary, 6 June 1672, undated
Artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633 to 1707)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC0299)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the summer of 1672 Charles II visited ships of the fleet refitting in the Thames after the Battle of Solebay in May. Van de Velde, who had come to England with his father that year, shows the yacht Anne of the king's brother James, Duke of York, in the left foreground under a red ensign, with the yacht Cleveland beyond hauling down the royal standard, for the king has gone aboard the Prince, on the right, to hold a council of war. French boats lie among them, France being England's ally in the Third Dutch War. A royal outing becomes an image of a navy repairing its wounds.
The real ship The Anne was a royal yacht used by James, Duke of York; the Prince, the principal ship in the painting, is where the king held his council of war during this visit after the Battle of Solebay.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Willem van de Velde the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Village cattle ferry Unnamed
The Cattle Ferry (Het ponteveer), 1622
Artist Esaias van de Velde (1587 to 1630)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-1293)
Medium Oil on panel
A ferry laden with people and animals crosses a river that runs through a village, houses and figures on both banks and a church and a windmill in the distance. The Rijksmuseum calls it a milestone: never before had a Dutch painter shown his native flat, watery landscape in so monumental a format. Dusk is falling and the glistening river draws the eye into the distance past countless little figures. The ferry, the everyday link across the water, sits at the heart of a new way of seeing the Dutch countryside.
“never before had a Dutch painter depicted his native flat, watery landscape in such a monumental format”
The vessels A village river ferry carrying people and livestock across the water.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Esaias van de Velde, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Dutch Greenland whalers at Smeerenburg Unnamed
The Whale-oil Refinery near the Village of Smerenburg, 1639
Artist Cornelis de Man (1621 to 1706)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-2355)
Medium Oil on canvas
Smeerenburg on Spitsbergen was a settlement of Dutch whalers, and de Man, who never went there, painted it in 1639 by combining images and stories he knew. The mountain on the left is probably the Beerenberg on Jan Mayen, and beside it rise the masts of the whaling ships. On the beach, strips of blubber are boiled down to train oil in the numerous try pots, a whale carcass is flensed on the left, and the men's barracks stand behind. The ships are the reason the whole smoking camp exists at the edge of the ice.
“As the painter never went there, he combined familiar images and stories in this work.”
The vessels Dutch Arctic whaling ships of the Noordse Compagnie era; at settlements such as Smeerenburg blubber was boiled into train oil on the beach while the ships lay offshore.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Cornelis de Man, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Herring busses Unnamed
Sign Painted on Both Sides with Herring Busses (D'Haringbuys), 1700 to 1799
Artist Anonymous, Northern Netherlands
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-C-1582)
Medium Oil on copper
Not a gallery painting but a hanging sign, painted on copper on both sides with two herring busses fishing at sea and lettered D'Haringbuys, the herring buss. That a sign could simply show this ship tells us how familiar she was: the Great Fishery, as the Dutch called the herring fishery, was especially profitable, and busses could follow the shoals far from the coast. The sign is a portrait of the working ship made for passers-by rather than connoisseurs, and all the more telling for it.
The vessels The herring buss was a seagoing Dutch fishing vessel of about 20 metres and 60 to 100 tons, round-bowed with a high stern and two or three masts, the main and fore masts lowered while fishing; gibbing and salting the herring on board let busses follow the shoals far from the coast. The first was probably built at Hoorn around 1415 and the last at Vlaardingen in 1841.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Gondolas on the Grand Canal Unnamed
The Stonemason's Yard (Campo San Vidal and Santa Maria della Carità), mid- to late 1720s
Artist Canaletto (1697 to 1768)
Where to see it National Gallery, London
Medium Oil on canvas
Canaletto's most intimate view of Venice looks across a temporary stonemason's yard in the Campo San Vidal to the church of Santa Maria della Carità, probably early in the morning. A cock crows on a windowsill, laundry hangs from the windows, a woman spins on her balcony and a child falls over in the foreground as a woman lunges to catch him. On the Grand Canal a gondola with a canopied cabin passes while others lie moored on both banks: the boats are the traffic of an ordinary working day, not a festival. It is considered one of Canaletto's finest works.
The vessels Venetian gondolas: one with a canopied cabin crossing the Grand Canal, others moored on either bank.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Canaletto; photo Sailko, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Tuna fishing boats at the madrague of Bandol Unnamed
The Madrague, or Tuna Fishing, in the Bay of Bandol (La Madrague ou la Pêche du thon), 1755
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 8295), on deposit at the Musée national de la Marine, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
The third of the Views of the Ports of France that Louis XV commissioned from Vernet, whose brief asked for the local industry in the foreground, and at Bandol that industry was tuna. Early morning light falls on the madrague, the traditional tuna trap, as the fishing boats encircle the net being hauled up and men walk on it to stop the fish escaping. Pleasure boats watch from the left, and beyond the bay is calm, a three-master at anchor beside a tartane. Vernet spent a fortnight at Bandol in 1754 before joining his family at Toulon, and showed the picture at the Salon of 1755.
The vessels The madrague was a traditional collective tuna fishery of the Provençal coast, in which fishing boats encircled the net as it was raised. The three-master and the tartane in the distance are unnamed.
Sources Louvre · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Venetian gondola with felze Unnamed
The Departure of the Gondola, mid-1760s
Artist Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727 to 1804)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019.141.20)
Medium Oil on canvas
The younger Tiepolo painted idealised scenes of contemporary Venetian life like this one. A couple in Carnival dress, masked and veiled, prepare to board a gondola; it is February, when small cabins called felzi were fitted to gondolas for warmth. The two men in blue and white livery, the Met points out, attest to Venice's large population of enslaved and freed people of colour, many of whom belonged to the gondoliers' guild. The gondola here is not a postcard: it is a winter taxi, a social stage and a workplace with its own guild.
“in February, when small cabins (felzi) were installed on gondolas for warmth.”
The vessels Gondolas were the passenger boats of Venice, rowed standing by gondoliers who belonged to a guild; in winter a small cabin, the felze, was fitted for the passengers' warmth.
Sources The Met
Image: Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Dieppe fishing boats in the outer harbour Unnamed
View of the Port of Dieppe (Vue du port de Dieppe), 1765
Artist Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789)
Where to see it Musée national de la Marine, Paris (on deposit from the Musée du Louvre)
Medium Oil on canvas
This is the last of the fifteen Ports of France painted by Vernet for Louis XV, a series meant to glorify the kingdom's harbours, each with its local activity in the foreground. Vernet went to Dieppe in September and October 1763 to make studies from nature. The view is taken in the morning across the outer harbour from the quay of the Arcades de la Bourse, the Pollet opposite. At Dieppe the chosen trade was fishing: every kind of fish caught off that coast laid out in the foreground, fishermen mending their nets, fishwives selling. The boats and their catch are the wealth of the port.
The vessels The boats are unnamed fishing craft and merchant vessels moored in Dieppe's outer harbour; the commission asked Vernet to show each port's own activity, and at Dieppe that was fishing.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Zaandam Named ship
The Greenlandman Zaandam of the Shipping Company Claes Taan and Son on a Whale Hunt, 1772
Artist Joghem de Vries
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-4065)
Medium Oil on canvas
A Zaandam painter records a Zaandam ship: the whaler Zaandam of Claes Taan and Son among the ice floes of the Davis Strait in 1772. The Rijksmuseum notes that she was one of 38 Dutch whalers there that year and came home with 240 barrels of blubber from five whales, while the whole fleet killed 240 whales. In the foreground her men have just harpooned a whale from their rowing boats; to the left lies a three-master under the Danish flag, and two Inuit paddle a kayak. It is a ship portrait and a season's record in paint.
“And in the foreground, the men of the ‘Zaandam’ have just harpooned a whale.”
The real ship Zaandam was a whaler owned by Claes Taan and Son of the Zaan district, which sent many ships to the Arctic; in 1772 she sailed to the Davis Strait, between Greenland and the North American coast, and returned with 240 barrels of blubber.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Joghem de Vries, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Prison hulks in Portsmouth Harbour Unnamed
Prison Hulks in Portsmouth Harbour, c. 1810
Artist Ambroise-Louis Garneray (1783 to 1857)
Where to see it Hampshire County Council (FA1996.24)
Medium Oil on canvas
Garneray painted this from experience. A sailor who had served under the corsair Surcouf, he was wounded and taken when the frigate Belle Poule was captured in March 1806, and spent the next eight years in the prison hulks off Portsmouth: the Protée, Couronne, Vengeance and Assistance. He improved his lot by painting and selling pictures to a local merchant. Here the hulks lie in a long line on still water under a vast pale sky, cut down and roofed over, small boats moving between them: a prisoner's view of the floating prisons that held him.
“But for piracy, I believe that I practiced about all kinds of navigation”
The vessels Prison hulks were old warships used as floating prisons; Garneray was held in the Protée, Couronne, Vengeance and Assistance off Portsmouth until his release on 18 May 1814.
Image: Ambroise-Louis Garneray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Stour barge under construction Unnamed
Boat-Building near Flatford Mill, 1815
Artist John Constable (1776 to 1837)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (FA.37[O])
Medium Oil on canvas
On a still summer day by the Stour, a barge takes shape in the dry dock of the boatyard owned by Constable's father at Flatford. It was being built, the V&A explains, to carry the family's flour down to Mistley in Essex on its way to London. Constable painted the landscape entirely in the open air from a tiny sketchbook drawing, and his biographer C. R. Leslie praised its atmospheric truth. The unfinished hull, drawn with unusual precision, is the working heart of Constable Country: the boat that tied the mill to the city.
“the tremulous vibration of the heated air near the ground seems visible”
The vessels A barge under construction in the boatyard of Constable's father by Flatford Mill, built to carry his flour down the Stour to Mistley in Essex on its way to London.
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Stour barges at Flatford Unnamed
Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River), 1816 to 1817
Artist John Constable (1776 to 1837)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London
Medium Oil on canvas
The subtitle says what Constable wanted us to see: a scene on a navigable river. Barges lie on the Stour below Flatford Mill while a boy sits on the tow horse on the towpath and a man stoops to the tow rope. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1817, it is seen as a forerunner of the six-footers that made his name. The barges were the reason the river mattered: a barge built in his father's boatyard by the mill carried his father's flour down to Mistley, and Constable paints them as part of the landscape itself.
The vessels Stour barges carried flour from the mills downriver towards London; the V&A notes that a barge Constable painted being built in his father's boatyard by Flatford Mill was meant to carry his flour down to Mistley in Essex on its way to London.
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Stour barge carrying a tow horse Unnamed
The White Horse, 1819
Artist John Constable (1776 to 1837)
Where to see it The Frick Collection, New York
Medium Oil on canvas
Just below the lock at Flatford, where the towpath switches from one bank of the Stour to the other, a barge ferries its tow horse across the river. Constable painted this small incident of river life on a canvas six feet wide, a size then reserved for historical, religious or mythological subjects, and it was the first of his six-footers, the series that includes The Hay Wain. At the Royal Academy in 1819 it drew more attention than anything he had shown before, and critics compared him with Turner for the first time. The working barge made the ordinary monumental.
“For the first time, an artist was using extra-ordinary proportions for the most ordinary of English scenes”
The vessels Barges on the Stour were towed by horses along a towpath; where the path changed banks below Flatford lock, the tow horse was ferried across the river.
Sources Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Stour barge and its tow horse Unnamed
The Leaping Horse, 1825
Artist John Constable (1776 to 1837)
Where to see it Royal Academy of Arts, London
Medium Oil on canvas
On the Stour in Constable Country a tow horse hauling a barge leaps one of the barriers put up to stop cattle wandering, its rider on its back. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1825 under the plain title Landscape, it is one of the great six-footers, and a full-sized study for it survives in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The moment is all energy, horse and barge in sudden motion under a windy sky, the everyday traffic of the river turned into drama.
The vessels Stour barges were towed by horses along the river bank, which was crossed by barriers built to stop cattle wandering.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Print
Amelia Wilson and Castor Named ship
South Sea Whale Fishery (the ships Amelia Wilson and Castor off the Island of Buru), 1825
Artist After William John Huggins (1781 to 1845), aquatint by Thomas Sutherland
Where to see it Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Wellington
Medium Coloured aquatint
Huggins was a London painter of ship portraits whose work, both original and as prints, found a ready market among merchants and seamen. In this aquatint, engraved by Thomas Sutherland and published in 1825, the Amelia Wilson and the Castor lie off the island of Buru while their boats attack sperm whales in the foreground, one boat destroyed by a wounded whale. The Amelia Wilson was a real ship with a restless life: a French prize taken in 1809, a West Indiaman, then a whaler making long voyages to Timor and the seas off Japan.
The real ship Amelia Wilson was built in France, captured in 1809 and renamed by her new owners, Wilson and Co. She traded to the West Indies, then made five whaling voyages from 1818, mostly to Timor and the seas off Japan, and was wrecked in the Bonin Islands in 1833 with the loss of some 1,440 barrels of oil; her crew were saved.
Sources natlib.govt.nz · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: After William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Print
Harmony of Hull Named ship
The Northern Whale Fishery (the Harmony of Hull and other whalers in the ice), 1829
Artist After William John Huggins (1781 to 1845), aquatint by Edward Duncan (1803 to 1882)
Medium Hand-coloured aquatint
Huggins first painted this scene in 1828, and his son-in-law Edward Duncan engraved it in 1829 as this hand-coloured aquatint. The Hull whaler Harmony, an American-built barque of 292 tons, lies at the centre among ice-bound ships in the Davis Strait, with the Margaret of London and the Eliza Swan of Montrose beside her. Men with lances work on the ice, boats thread the floes, and a May Day garland is hoisted halfway up the Harmony's main topgallant stay, a note of celebration in a landscape of ice. A larger second version was painted in 1835, most likely for the son of the Harmony's owner.
The real ship Harmony was an American-built barque of 292 tons, owned by Thomas Bell and sailing from Hull in the northern whale fishery to the Davis Strait.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: After William John Huggins, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Whaleboat and whaleship Unnamed
Attacking the Right Whale, c. 1835
Artist Ambroise-Louis Garneray (1783 to 1857)
Where to see it Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts
Medium Oil on canvas
Garneray went to sea at thirteen, served under the corsair Surcouf and spent eight years in British prison hulks before returning to painting, and in the 1830s he took up aquatint and engraving on a large scale. Herman Melville, in Moby-Dick, called two French engravings after Garnery's paintings, attacks on the sperm and the right whale, the finest pictures of whaling to be found anywhere. In this canvas a crowded whaleboat surges alongside a right whale spouting red, a harpooner poised in the bow, while behind them the whaleships go on with their work, one trailing dark smoke. The small boat against the huge animal is the terror and business of whaling in one frame.
“by far the finest, though in some details not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to be anywhere found”
The vessels Whaleboats were lowered from the whaleship when whales were sighted; here one attacks a right whale while the ships lie behind.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · gutenberg.org
Image: Ambroise-Louis Garneray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Fur traders' canoe Unnamed
Fur Traders Descending the Missouri, 1845
Artist George Caleb Bingham (1811 to 1879)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (33.61)
Medium Oil on canvas
An old trader in a pointed cap paddles a laden canoe down the Missouri in hazy light, a younger man leaning on the cargo, a black animal chained at the bow, their reflections doubled in the glassy water. Bingham first called the picture French Trader, Half-breed Son; the American Art Union thought the title controversial and renamed it when it was first exhibited, and the engraving it distributed helped make his name. The Met notes that he painted it after returning to St. Louis with sketches from central Missouri, and that the luminous scene idealised frontier life for an Eastern audience.
The vessels A fur traders' canoe on the Missouri, carrying two men and their cargo downstream.
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Pinky and New England boat at their moorings, with a yawl boat and wherry on the beach Unnamed
The Fort and Ten Pound Island, Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1847
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (635, 1982.43)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted the year before Lane moved back to Gloucester, this late-afternoon view looks from Duncan's Point across to Fort Point and Ten Pound Island, with Fort Defiance on the summit and the fish flakes of the drying yard beyond. The beach is full of life: six men strain to push a yawl boat into the water, a wherry waits at the water's edge, a boy watches a man fishing from the rocks, and a fisherman dresses cod while a smartly dressed Boston dandy points his walking stick at the catch. The Lane catalogue wonders whether the dandy is Lane himself.
“Can this dandified Bostonian be one F. H. Lane who, in the year after he painted this picture, moved back to Gloucester?”
The vessels Afloat in Harbor Cove are a square-sterned New England boat, descended from the colonial shallop, and a double-ended pinky; the wherry differed from a dory in having a slightly wider stern. Two fishing schooners lie grounded on the causeway in the background.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · Wikipedia
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Hardanger wedding boats Unnamed
Bridal Procession on the Hardangerfjord (Brudeferd i Hardanger), 1848
Artist Adolph Tidemand (1814 to 1876) and Hans Gude (1825 to 1903)
Where to see it National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo (formerly the National Gallery)
Medium Oil on canvas
A wedding party crosses the fjord in rowing boats after the ceremony. In the first boat the groom tips his hat beside the bride in her crown and red Hardanger costume; a guest pours a drink, a fiddler plays and a man stands to fire a gun. Gude, only 23, painted the landscape and Tidemand the people, in Düsseldorf in the winter of 1847 to 1848. Commissioned as the backdrop for a tableau vivant in Christiania, it became one of the best-known Norwegian paintings, the boats carrying the whole romance of national life across the water.
The vessels Open rowing boats of the Hardanger fjord, shown carrying the bridal party and its guests from the church; the crew wear bunad costume and two more boats follow in the distance. No individual boat is identified.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Adolph Tidemand, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
New Bedford whaleships Unnamed
Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage 'Round the World, 1848
Artist Benjamin Russell (1804 to 1885) and Caleb Purrington
Where to see it New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts
Medium Paint on cloth (moving panorama)
At 1,275 feet this is the longest painting in the United States, longer than the Empire State Building is tall. Benjamin Russell had worked as a cooper aboard a whaling ship before he took up painting, and with the sign painter Caleb Purrington he turned a voyage round the world into a show: the canvas was mounted on spools on a stage and cranked along, with narration, music and lighting effects. It was first displayed in 1848. Russell's ships are drawn almost perfectly to scale, like shipwright's control drawings, which is why his views were valued above all for their accuracy.
“surprising in its variety and beauty”
The vessels The panorama depicts a whaling voyage around the world in the first half of the nineteenth century; its ships were drawn by a painter who had served as a cooper aboard a whaler.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Benjamin Russell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Essex Named ship
The Wreck of the Essex (detail of the Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage 'Round the World), 1848
Artist Benjamin Russell (1804 to 1885) and Caleb Purrington
Where to see it New Bedford Whaling Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts
Medium Paint on cloth (moving panorama)
Among the scenes of Russell and Purrington's panorama is the most famous disaster in whaling: the Essex of Nantucket, struck and sunk by a sperm whale in the southern Pacific on 20 November 1820. Her twenty men took to three whaleboats some 2,000 nautical miles from South America; three months later only a few were still alive, and the accounts of the first mate Owen Chase and the cabin boy Thomas Nickerson made the story known. The tragedy inspired Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. In the painted scene the ship still sails, a whale surging in white water at her bow, her boat pulling nearby.
The real ship Essex was a Nantucket whaleship launched in 1799, considered lucky after six profitable voyages. On 20 November 1820, under Captain George Pollard Jr., she was struck and sunk by a sperm whale about 2,000 nautical miles from South America; her twenty men took to three whaleboats, and only a few survived.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Benjamin Russell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Lumber brig (half brig) grounded at low tide, with a log raft and yawl boat Unnamed
Twilight on the Kennebec, 1849
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Peabody Essex Museum, Salem (M22672)
Medium Oil on canvas
One of Lane's earliest Maine pictures, set on the tidal lower Kennebec near the narrows called The Chops. The tide has ebbed and a lumber brig lies aground, her sails hung loosely in the gear so the cool night air and the morning dew will not leave them mildewed. On the bank a log raft waits with the brig's yawl boat beside it; when the tide rises it will be loaded with boards and floated out to her. A northbound steamer passes through the rough water at the right. It is a working scene turned into a twilight meditation.
The vessels Half brigs, also called lumber brigs, loaded long sawn boards through a port in the bow because they would not pass through the deck hatch; once the hold was full, more lumber was stowed on deck from rail to rail.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Durham boat carrying Washington Unnamed
Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851
Artist Emanuel Leutze (1816 to 1868)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (97.34)
Medium Oil on canvas
Leutze conceived this picture of Washington's crossing of the Delaware on 25 to 26 December 1776 during the Revolutions of 1848, hoping to encourage Europe's liberal reformers; painted in Düsseldorf, its river is modelled on the Rhine. More than 50,000 people came to see this second version in New York in 1851. The boat carries a cross-section of the colonies: a man in a Scottish bonnet, a man of African descent, a western rifleman at the bow. The real crossing used Durham boats, larger flat-bottomed freight boats, and the historian David Hackett Fischer has argued that the men would have stood to keep out of the icy water.
The vessels Durham boats were large, flat-bottomed, double-ended freight boats with high sides and a beam of about eight feet, used to haul freight on the Delaware; Washington's army used them to cross the river on 25 and 26 December 1776.
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Leksand church boats Unnamed
Church Goers Arriving by Boat at the Parish Church of Leksand on Siljan Lake, 1853
Artist Wilhelm Marstrand (1810 to 1873)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS618)
Medium Oil on canvas
War kept Marstrand from a honeymoon in the south in 1850, so on Hans Christian Andersen's advice he went to Dalarna, where on Sundays the people of Leksand crossed Lake Siljan to church in their great church boats. He returned in July 1851 to sketch, and the finished canvas was ready for the opening of the Charlottenborg exhibition in 1853. Jesper Svenningsen writes that Marstrand gave up anecdote and caricature here, orchestrating the crowd with a tautness more like a battle scene than an ordinary Sunday morning. The long boats, packed with parishioners, carry a whole community.
“more reminiscent of a battle scene than of a rural population assembling on a perfectly ordinary Sunday morning”
The vessels Great church boats (kyrkbåtar) in which the people of Leksand crossed Lake Siljan to Sunday service, as the painting's Danish title records.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Wilhelm Marstrand, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Small sailing boat running for shelter on Narragansett Bay Unnamed
Approaching Thunder Storm, 1859
Artist Martin Johnson Heade (1819 to 1904)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1975.160)
Medium Oil on canvas
A man and his dog sit on the shore of Narragansett Bay, sunlight at their backs, watching black clouds and a thin bolt of lightning over water gone dark as slate. Heade caught what a critic of his day called the ominous hush before a storm, working from a sketch of an approaching storm he saw from Prudence Island around 1858. Out on the bay a small white sail stands bright against the dark, with a rowing boat nearer the shore. It is one of the earliest of Heade's small series of coastal storm pictures.
“ominous hush”
The vessels An unnamed small sailing boat and a rowing boat on Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island; the Met does not describe them.
Sources The Met
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Outward-bound whaling ship and a schooner off Gay Head Unnamed
Whaler off the Vineyard: Outward Bound, 1859
Artist William Bradford (1823 to 1892)
Where to see it Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1978.72)
Medium Oil on fibreboard
Bradford is best known for his Arctic pictures, but his early work was given to the ships of New England; he grew up near New Bedford, home of a successful whaling industry. Here a large whaler sails past the cliffs of Gay Head on Martha's Vineyard, the standard route for whalers entering and leaving New Bedford, while a smaller schooner sails in the foreground. The Smithsonian points to his attention to the smallest details, from the ripples in the sails to the suspenders on the sailors: the eye of a ship portraitist turned on the start of a voyage.
“Bradford emphasized the smallest details in this sweeping seascape, from the ripples in the sails to the suspenders on the sailors.”
The vessels New Bedford was home to a successful whaling industry, and whalers leaving the port passed Gay Head on Martha's Vineyard on their way to sea.
Sources Smithsonian American Art Museum · Wikipedia
Image: William Bradford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Lumber schooner, pinky and lobsterman's dory becalmed off Halfway Rock Unnamed
Becalmed off Halfway Rock, 1860
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1992.51.8)
Medium Oil on canvas
Halfway Rock, a dome of stone halfway between Boston and Cape Ann, was a marker for coasters and fishermen alike, and Lane gathers them round it in a late-afternoon calm. A lumber schooner heading south, probably with Maine boards for Boston, is silhouetted against the sun, a lobsterman works from his dory, and a pinky towing a dory and wherry is fitted out for gillnetting herring, which schooled here in September. Behind the pinky a lone square-rigged merchant ship stands for the decline of Salem's foreign trade. It is a portrait of a whole coastal economy held in stillness.
The vessels Lumber schooners, or coasters, carried boards cut in Maine south to Boston; the pinky is fitted out for gillnetting herring. The stone monument on Halfway Rock was probably erected by the US Coast Survey around 1840 for triangulation.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · National Gallery of Art
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Scheveningen bomschuiten Unnamed
Bluff-Bowed Scheveningen Boats at Anchor (Scheveningse bommen voor anker), 1860 to 1889
Artist Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831 to 1915)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-2474)
Medium Oil on canvas
Four fishing boats lie at anchor in the shallows off Scheveningen with a group of fishwives standing by them, in an upright canvas that gives the hulls and masts their full height. Mesdag, the Hague School's great painter of the North Sea, returned to these boats again and again. They had no harbour: they sailed from the beach and came back to it, their heavy flat bottoms built to run through the surf and take the ground. The painting is a portrait of the boats as the village knew them, waiting in the shallow water by the shore.
The vessels The bomschuit, a flat-bottomed, decked boat derived from the pink, served the harbourless fishing villages of the Holland coast; the larger ones carried two masts, with leeboards to reduce drift.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia (NL)
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Coastal vessels and a boatman's small boat off Owl's Head Unnamed
Owl's Head, Penobscot Bay, Maine, 1862
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (48.448)
Medium Oil on canvas
Probably Lane's best-known work, painted in the manner later called Luminism for its pervasive light. He greatly simplified the idyllic harbour view: a single boatman gazes across a seemingly unpopulated bay, while the headland of Owl's Head and its tiny lighthouse stand silhouetted against the evening sky. The commercial traffic of the coast is there, but pared back so that nothing distracts from the stillness, though in the 1850s a mariner could write of five hundred sail passing Owl's Head in one day. Here the vessels give scale and a trace of human business to a picture about light and the end of a day.
“nature is a presence that envelops and transfixes the solitary boatman”
The vessels Unnamed coastal craft of West Penobscot Bay; the Lane catalogue indexes a half brig, a schooner and a small yawl boat or dory in the picture. Owl's Head Light guided mariners into the port of Rockland.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · MFA Boston · Wikipedia
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Becalmed schooner and full-rigged ship, schooner boat and a beached New England boat Unnamed
Stage Fort across Gloucester Harbor, 1862
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1978.203)
Medium Oil on canvas
One of Lane's largest canvases, and very likely the picture he made for his doctor and friend H. E. Davidson, shows the overgrown Stage Fort, a relic of seventeenth-century Gloucester, across a still harbour in the light of a late-summer afternoon. A schooner and a full-rigged ship lie becalmed in the distance while a small schooner boat approaches the shore. On the beach lies the time-worn hull of a New England boat, a type Lane painted for nearly two decades, each time in a further stage of decay. The Met finds the mood both hopeful and elegiac.
“The light is unearthly, and the slack sails reveal the utter stillness of the air and water.”
The vessels The beached hull is a New England boat, a Cape Ann type; the Lane catalogue traces the same wreck to the broken frames on the beach at Norman's Woe Cove in another painting of 1862.
Sources The Met · fitzhenrylaneonline.org
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Two lumber schooners at evening Unnamed
Lumber Schooners at Evening on Penobscot Bay, 1863
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1980.29.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two motionless ships guide the eye across still water towards the embers of the dying sun. In the foreground sailors lower the sails of a schooner heavily loaded with lumber to moor her for the night; a second schooner lies in the distance with her sails already down. Painted only two years before Lane's death, which was preceded by severe ill health, the picture reduces a working scene to its essence, and its emptiness, in Tim Barringer's words, lends it a melancholy overtone. The four tiny sailors are dwarfed by sea and sky at the close of a day's labour.
“documentary qualities have become secondary to poetic ones.”
The vessels Lumber schooners carried timber from the Penobscot River, one of the main routes into the wooded interior of Maine, out to the Atlantic coast and south to Boston; Maine white pine and spruce were in demand for shipbuilding and for the growing north-eastern cities.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · National Gallery of Art
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
A Sogn jakt (sognejakt) Unnamed
A Sloop from Sogn (En sognejakt), 1866
Artist Hans Gude (1825 to 1903)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.00635-003)
Medium Oil on canvas mounted on board
Gude dated this study to the day, 29 August 1866, at Fresvik on the Sognefjord. A broad jakt with a green-painted square stern and small stern windows lies moored beside stacked timber and a wooden shed, her mast tall against the steep mountainside, figures working aboard. It is a portrait of a working vessel rather than a romantic view: the museum catalogues it as a boat study, and it came to the National Gallery by Gude's own bequest in 1904. It belongs to the years when he was turning from inland landscapes to the coast and the sea.
The vessels The jakt was a broad, small, fast-sailing flat-sterned cargo vessel with one mast and gaff rig, probably of Dutch origin, built mainly for fjord and coastal freight; related Hardanger jakts carried salt fish from northern Norway to the west coast.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikipedia (NO)
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Volga cargo barge Unnamed
Barge Haulers on the Volga (Burlaki na Volge), 1870 to 1873
Artist Ilya Repin (1844 to 1930)
Where to see it State Russian Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Eleven burlaki, bound in leather harnesses, drag a barge along the bank of the Volga in a white, silvery light. Repin saw such men while holidaying on the river in 1870 and painted real people among them: a former soldier, a painter, and the defrocked priest Kanin who leads the line, a man of dignity whom Repin likened to a saint. The barge sits behind them with the Russian flag flying upside down from its mast, and far off a tiny steamer suggests that such labour is no longer needed. The picture launched Repin's career and has been called perhaps the most famous painting of the Peredvizhniki.
“They are like a group of forest Hercules with their disheveled heads, their sun-tanned chests”
The vessels A cargo barge on the Volga, which had to be hauled upstream against the current by gangs of burlaki walking the bank; the small steamboat in the distance hints at the machines that would replace them.
Sources Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Josie Named ship
Max Schmitt in a Single Scull (The Champion Single Sculls), 1871
Artist Thomas Eakins (1844 to 1916)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (34.92)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eakins had just come home from Paris when his friend Max Schmitt won the Schuylkill single sculls championship on 5 October 1870 in record time. The painting reproduces the weather and the position of the sun at the date and hour of the win, but shows Schmitt nearly at rest, dragging his oars, just downstream of the Columbia Railroad Bridge where the race turned. His scull was named Josie after his sister, and Eakins painted himself rowing in the middle distance, signing his name on the stern of his own boat. It was the first of almost thirty rowing works.
“a shock to the artistic conventionalities of the city”
The real ship Josie was Max Schmitt's own single scull, named after his sister; Schmitt, an early convert to sculls, rowed for the Pennsylvania Barge Club.
Fishermen and working boats · Print
The American Arctic whaling fleet of 1871 Unnamed
Abandonment of the Whalers in the Arctic Ocean, September 1871, 1872
Artist After John Perry Newell (1831 to 1898), printed by Benjamin Russell, New Bedford
Where to see it The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
In September 1871 thirty-three American whaleships hunting bowheads off northern Alaska were pinned against the shore by the ice. On 12 September the captains signed a compact aboard the Florida, and on the morning of 14 September each ship struck her flag and the 1,219 people aboard set off in small whaleboats on a two-day journey of seventy miles over ice and sea to the seven ships that had escaped to the south. This print, published through the New Bedford artist Benjamin Russell, shows the fleet caught in the ice with Wainwright Inlet behind, a serious blow to an industry already in decline.
“we feel ourselves under the painful necessity of abandoning our vessels”
The vessels The fleet of 33 ships, 22 of them from New Bedford, was lost to the ice near Point Belcher in September 1871; salvors later recovered the Minerva and the Seneca. The rescuing ships included the Europa, Arctic, Progress and Lagoda.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: After John Perry Newell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Toy sailing boat Unnamed
Children of the Sea (Kinderen der zee), 1872
Artist Jozef Israëls (1824 to 1911)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-2382)
Medium Oil on canvas
Four children of a fishing family play with a toy sailing boat in the shallows, the eldest boy carrying a smaller child on his back. The Rijksmuseum reads the charming scene as a message: in their rags and paltry toys we glimpse their future, and the little boat stands for the rigours of life at sea. Israëls first painted the subject in 1863 and it was so popular that he repeated it often. A toy boat has rarely carried so much weight.
“the little boat stands for the rigours of life at sea”
The vessels A child's toy sailing boat, which the Rijksmuseum reads as a sign of the rigours of life at sea awaiting a fisherman's children.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
The Biglin brothers' pair-oared racing shell Unnamed
The Biglin Brothers Turning the Stake, 1873
Artist Thomas Eakins (1844 to 1916)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1927.1984)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1872 John and Barney Biglin, brothers from New York active in professional rowing, challenged any English pair to a race; none came forward, but a Pittsburgh crew accepted, and in May the brothers met them on a five-mile course on the Schuylkill in Philadelphia. Eakins paints the hardest moment, the turn around the stake at halfway, spectators lining the bank and the rivals lagging behind. The Biglins won by a minute and were proclaimed world champions, and Eakins painted them many times. The Cleveland Museum sees the picture as a celebration of athletic teamwork.
“Barney and John Biglin negotiate the tricky turn around a stake marking the halfway point in the contest.”
The vessels A pair-oared racing shell rowed by two oarsmen; in the 1870s rowing was among the most popular spectator sports in the United States.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Toy boats and passing Gloucester craft Unnamed
The Boat Builders, 1873
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields
Medium Oil on panel
Two boys in wide-brimmed hats sit on the rocky shore at Gloucester working on toy boats while real sails pass offshore. Homer painted it in the summer of 1873, part of a series of drawings and paintings about shipbuilding in the port, and the link between the toy hulls and the working vessels on the water is the whole point: the boys' game suggests their future role in the ships, the sea and the fisheries. The picture was reproduced as an engraving in Harper's Weekly on 11 October 1873.
The vessels Toy sailing hulls, echoed by the working boats passing offshore; Homer painted it in Gloucester during his 1873 series on shipbuilding.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
The catboat Gloucester Named in the picture
Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), 1873 to 1876
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
Homer began the canvas in New York in 1873 after a summer at Gloucester, and it shows a catboat called the Gloucester chopping through the harbour with a man, three boys and their catch. He worked on it for three years, painting out a fourth boy near the mast and putting an anchor, a sign of hope, in the bow while the boy at the tiller looks towards the horizon. Finished in the centennial year 1876 and shown at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, it became one of the best-loved images of American life. The boat carries everything: the wind in the sail, the lean of the hull, the bodies swaying with the swell.
“There is no truer or heartier work in the exhibition.”
The vessels The catboat Gloucester, a small fishing boat under a single sail, sailing through Gloucester harbour.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Children in a dory, with Gloucester fishing schooners beyond Unnamed
Gloucester Harbor, 1873
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (F76-46)
Medium Oil on canvas
Three children take a dory out on Gloucester Harbor, one rowing and two seated in the stern, under a sky filled with pink cloud. In the 1870s Homer was known for scenes of children at play that were thought refreshingly free of sentiment. Behind the boys stand huge schooners, which the Nelson-Atkins reads as a sign of the boys' possible future livelihood, so that a summer outing carries a glimpse of the working life to come. The picture glows with an eerie mix of pink and blue light, and a distant gull gives depth to the calm.
“suggests, by the presence of the huge schooners in the background, the boys' possible future livelihood.”
The vessels The children row a dory; the huge schooners behind them are read by the museum as the boys' possible future livelihood.
Sources art.nelson-atkins.org · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Drawing
John Biglin's single scull Unnamed
John Biglin in a Single Scull, c. 1873
Artist Thomas Eakins (1844 to 1916)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (24.108)
Medium Watercolour on off-white wove paper
John Biglin, who with his brother Barney won fame as a professional oarsman in the decade after the Civil War, sits in his single scull, oars in hand. When Eakins began painting watercolours for exhibition in 1873 he took up sporting scenes, and this sheet is a replica of one he sent to his Paris teacher Gérôme for criticism. The master's reply was warm and proud. Eakins painted John and Barney again and again, eleven pictures in all, and here the needle-thin hull becomes an instrument of pure effort and balance.
“Your watercolor is entirely good and I am very pleased to have in New York a pupil such as you who does me honor.”
The vessels The boat is John Biglin's single scull, a racing boat rowed by one man with a pair of oars; John raced professionally with his brothers in the decade after the Civil War.
Fishermen and working boats · Print
Schooner on the stocks at Gloucester Unnamed
Ship-Building, Gloucester Harbor (from Harper's Weekly), 1873
Artist After Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.88.9(8))
Medium Wood engraving
Published in Harper's Weekly on 11 October 1873, the same issue that reproduced The Boat Builders as an engraving, this print belongs to Homer's summer series on shipbuilding at Gloucester. A big wooden hull stands on the stocks with shipwrights working along her rail and staging, timbers and planks strewn across the yard, and in the foreground boys sit among the wood chips, two of them holding toy sailing boats. It shows the fishing fleet before it floats: the timbers, the shipwrights, and the children who would one day sail in such vessels.
The vessels A large wooden vessel under construction on the stocks in a Gloucester shipyard in 1873.
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Fishing boat careened on Berck beach Unnamed
Tarring the Boat (Le Bateau goudronné), 1873
Artist Édouard Manet (1832 to 1883)
Where to see it Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (BF166)
Medium Oil on canvas
During one of his regular summer stays at Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1873, Manet painted at the beach of Berck the hull of a fishing boat being tarred. It is an unglamorous subject, upkeep rather than adventure, and he painted it with a darker palette than usual, typical of his work at that time. The black hull, propped up on the sand, fills much of the canvas; two men work against it with a burning torch, flames and smoke rising, while a pot stands on the sand and a sail shows far off on the sea. It is a rare, direct look at the care a working boat needs.
The vessels A fishing boat hauled out and propped on the beach at Berck while her hull is tarred.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Rail shooting skiffs in the Delaware marshes Unnamed
Pushing for Rail, 1874
Artist Thomas Eakins (1844 to 1916)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (16.65)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eakins hunted waterfowl with his father and friends in the tidal marshes of New Jersey's Delaware River, and in 1873 those trips produced a series of pictures. Hunting for rail, small marsh birds, was possible only at high tide, when the pusher could drive his flat-bottomed boat through the thick reeds while the gunner took aim. Three pairs of sportsmen line up across the canvas like a frieze, painted in nearly microscopic detail and showing the successive phases of the hunt: loading, steadying the boat and waiting, and taking aim. The boats, and the men standing in them, make a study in balance.
“possible only at high tide, when the ‘pusher’ can propel the flat-bottomed boat through the thick reeds”
The vessels Small flat-bottomed boats pushed through the reeds at high tide by a 'pusher', used for rail shooting in the tidal marshes of the Delaware River in New Jersey.
Sources The Met
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Racing sailboats on the Delaware River Unnamed
Sailboats Racing on the Delaware, 1874
Artist Thomas Eakins (1844 to 1916)
Where to see it Philadelphia Museum of Art (1929-184-28)
Medium Oil on canvas
Back in Philadelphia in 1870 after four years of study in Paris, Eakins chose modern American life as his subject and began his rowing, sailing and hunting pictures. Several of the sailing scenes, possibly this one, record real races he watched at Gloucester, New Jersey. The Philadelphia Museum of Art points to his dedication to getting the details right, from the precise rigging of the central sailboat to the simple but powerful suggestion of the crew straining against the wind.
The vessels The boats are small racing sailboats of the Delaware River; the Philadelphia Museum of Art notes that Eakins based several sailing scenes on races he watched at Gloucester, New Jersey.
Sources Philadelphia Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Coal barges on the Seine at Clichy Unnamed
The Coal Dockers (Les Déchargeurs de charbon), c. 1875
Artist Claude Monet (1840 to 1926)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
Monet, then living at Argenteuil, came closer to Paris for this unusual industrial scene: barges being unloaded on the Seine near the Asnières bridge, where coal fed the steam engines of the riverside works, Gustave Eiffel's workshops among them. Silhouetted men carrying loads file along planks between the barges and the bank beneath the heavy span of the bridge. Unusually for Monet the colours seem clogged with dust, and art historians consider the influence of Hiroshige and Hokusai beyond doubt. The barges are the link between river and industry, and the men are their human conveyor belt.
The vessels Seine barges (péniches) bringing coal to the industrial bank at Clichy, near the Asnières bridge, where it fed the steam engines of the local works.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Scheveningen pinks Unnamed
Fishing Pinks in Breaking Waves (Pinken in de branding), c. 1875 to 1885
Artist Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831 to 1915)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-2670)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Scheveningen fleet lies in the breaking waves, their wooden flat-bottomed pinks built to be pulled straight onto the beach, since the village had no harbour. Anchors stick out of the sand in the foreground. As the Rijksmuseum explains, when the boats arrived the women flocked to the beach to buy the fresh catch at auction, then went from door to door selling it from carts. Mesdag gives us a glimpse into the life of the fishermen of Scheveningen, the boats and the crowd on the sand bound together by the catch.
“Their wooden flatbottomed ships, ‘pinks,’ could easily be pulled onto the beach in the absence of a harbour.”
The vessels Pinks were the wooden, flat-bottomed fishing boats of Scheveningen, pulled up onto the beach because the village had no harbour; the catch was auctioned on the beach.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Hornbæk fishing boats landing the catch Unnamed
Morning at Hornbæk: The Fishermen Coming Ashore (Morgen ved Hornbæk. Fiskerne kommer i land), 1875
Artist Peder Severin Krøyer (1851 to 1909)
Where to see it Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen (204)
Medium Oil on canvas
Years before Skagen, the young Krøyer made his name with paintings of the fishermen of Hornbæk on the north coast of Zealand. In this large early canvas, over a metre and a half wide, the boats have just come in: their tall sails hang loose against the morning sky, men haul and carry on the beach, and women in headscarves gather round baskets of fish. The same year he painted another view of the scene, Morning at Hornbæk: Men and Women Bargaining. The boats frame the whole crowd like a stage set, the working life of the shore depending on them.
The vessels Open sailing fishing boats of Hornbæk on the north coast of Zealand, drawn up on the beach to land their catch.
Image: Peder Severin Krøyer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Rowing boat on the Yerres Unnamed
Boating Party (Partie de bateau, or Le Canotier au chapeau haut de forme), 1878
Artist Gustave Caillebotte (1848 to 1894)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
Caillebotte had spent his summers on the Yerres since the age of twelve, and in 1876 he joined the sailing club at Argenteuil frequented by Manet, Monet and Renoir; boating would remain a lifelong passion. Here an elegant friend rows on the river, jacket off but top hat still on, as though just arrived from Paris, while two rowers approach behind in a périssoire. The picture hung at the Impressionist exhibition of 1879 and was caricatured in Le Charivari. The family property at Yerres was sold that June, ending the happy summers the painting records.
The vessels A rowing boat on the Yerres near the Caillebotte family property; behind it two rowers approach in a périssoire, a light skiff Caillebotte painted several times at the time.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, where the original is kept. Photo: Gonzalezpascalphotos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Tarred rowing boat off Haikko Unnamed
Conveying the Child's Coffin (A Child's Funeral), 1879
Artist Albert Edelfelt (1854 to 1905)
Where to see it Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki
Medium Oil on canvas
On a sunny late-summer morning off Haikko, near Porvoo, a brown-tarred rowing boat carries three peasant women, two men, a girl and a small coffin across the calm water. One man pulls at the oars, the girl holds a few yellow flowers, and far off on the bright bay lie low islands and a sailing ship. Edelfelt sets the grief in clear, still light, and the slow progress of the laden boat gives the scene its quiet dignity. The boat is both the family's road and the child's last passage.
The vessels A brown-tarred rowing boat off Haikko, near Porvoo, on the Finnish coast.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Albert Edelfelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Rowing gig on the Seine at Chatou Unnamed
Oarsmen at Chatou, 1879
Artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 to 1919)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
On the Seine at Chatou a light rowing boat lies at the grassy bank, a young man seated in it and another in pale boating clothes standing by with a woman, while a sculler and a sailing boat pass on the river beyond. Among Renoir's figures is the painter Gustave Caillebotte, dressed just as his brother Martial appears in Caillebotte's own garden picture, The Orange Trees. Signed and dated 1879, the picture catches the Sunday rowing life of the Paris suburbs, the boat drawn up at the bank as an invitation to the river.
The vessels A light pleasure rowing boat of the kind used by weekend oarsmen on the Seine at Chatou; the boat is not identified.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Fisherman's punt Unnamed
The Poor Fisherman (Le Pauvre Pêcheur), 1879 to 1881
Artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824 to 1898)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
A bearded fisherman stands in his boat with eyes closed and hands crossed, his net in the water, while on the shore a young woman gathers flowers or roots near a small child. Puvis said it showed a fisherman and his two children as personifications of poverty; others read it as an allegory of fate, of faith, even of Christ. It was unlike anything then fashionable at the Salon and was criticised for its supposed lack of realism, yet the young Symbolists took to it with enthusiasm, and the state bought it in 1887. The small boat on the wide grey river is the measure of how little he has.
The vessels A small unnamed river boat, from which the fisherman works his net on a river that fills most of a desolate landscape.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
A Norwegian sailing vessel seen from her deck Unnamed
Port your Helm! (Babord litt), c. 1879
Artist Christian Krohg (1852 to 1925)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo (NG.M.00622)
Medium Oil on canvas
An old sailor in an ochre sou'wester and oilskins stands at the rail and raises his hand, as if calling the order of the title to the helmsman, the shrouds rising behind him and a grey sea beyond. The picture puts us on deck beside him, and it is counted among Krohg's early masterpieces. It opened a thirty-year series: Krohg used the sou'wester as the mark of the Norwegian seafarer in more than fifteen paintings, from Port your Helm! in 1879 to Man Overboard of 1907 to 1908, almost always in ochre yellow. The ship is never shown whole, yet we feel her in every line.
The vessels A sailing vessel seen from her own deck, with her shrouds and rail in view.
Sources Nasjonalmuseet · Wikipedia (NO)
Image: Christian Krohg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Whaling ship trapped in the ice Unnamed
An Incident of Whaling, 1880s
Artist William Bradford (1823 to 1892)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1990.197.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bradford began his career painting ships in the whaling port of New Bedford, then made seven expeditions to the Arctic in the 1860s, one of the first American artists to do so. Here he joins the two worlds: a whaler trapped in ice floes, her rigging recorded with a ship portraitist's precision, the light and ice drawn from sketches and photographs made on the spot. The Met notes that he finished it in his New York studio, probably in the 1880s, when American commercial whaling had long been in decline, which lends the scene a note of farewell.
The vessels The whaler is unidentified. Bradford knew such ships from New Bedford, and by the 1880s, when he painted this, American commercial whaling had long been in decline.
Image: William Bradford, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Small sailing fishing boat under the moon Unnamed
The Toilers of the Sea, c. 1880 to 1885
Artist Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847 to 1917)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (15.32)
Medium Oil on wood
Ryder grew up in the whaling port of New Bedford, and the sea stayed in his work after he moved to New York in 1870. A sea captain friend remembered him studying the moon on the Hudson to catch its effects. This small panel, which may relate to Victor Hugo's novel of the same name, shows a dark boat under sail beneath a luminous moon and heavy cloud. Ryder's thick layers of paint have altered the surface over time, but the Met still calls it a gemlike work. The lonely boat is the toil and the dream together.
The vessels An unnamed small sailing boat of a single sail, painted as a dark shape on a moonlit sea; the Met does not identify its type.
Sources The Met
Fishermen and working boats · Drawing
Gloucester fishing schooners Unnamed
Two Boys Watching Schooners, 1880
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1933.1244)
Medium Watercolour with graphite on paper
Painted in 1880 during Homer's second visit to Gloucester, the watercolour sets two boys on an enormous rock, a vantage point from which they could keep an eye on the comings and goings of the fishing fleet. Homer paints the boys and the shore in warm tones and the harbour, sky and schooner in cool blues, and the Art Institute reads the contrast as the isolation of those who waited on shore, hoping for the safe return of men who made their living from the sea. The schooner, cool and distant, belongs to the world the boys can only watch.
“the figures and shore (rendered in warm tones) with the cool blue tones of the harbor, sky and schooner”
The vessels A schooner of the Gloucester fishing fleet, whose comings and goings the boys watch from the shore.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Scheveningen bomschuiten Unnamed
Panorama of Scheveningen (Panorama Mesdag), 1881
Artist Hendrik Willem Mesdag (1831 to 1915)
Where to see it Museum Panorama Mesdag, The Hague
Medium Oil on canvas (cylindrical panorama)
Standing on the painted dune in The Hague you are on top of the Seinpostduin in 1881, with the village, the beach and the North Sea all around you, on a canvas 14.7 metres high and some 114 metres round. Mesdag, the marine painter of the Hague School, gave the sky and dunes to Théophile de Bock and the cavalry to Breitner, and kept the boats and the sea for himself. Along the beach lie the bomschuiten of the fishing fleet, and instead of a signature Mesdag painted his wife Sientje at her easel under a white parasol among them. It is one of the oldest surviving panoramas in the world.
The vessels Bomschuiten were flat-bottomed fishing boats developed from the older pink, built to run through the surf and land on the beach, since Scheveningen had no harbour until the early twentieth century.
Sources Wikipedia (NL) · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Panorama Mesdag, The Hague, where the original is kept. Photo: Steven Lek, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Étaples fishing boat bringing home a drowned fisherman Unnamed
The Mourners of Étaples (Les Deuillants à Étaples), 1883
Artist Francis Tattegrain (1852 to 1915)
Where to see it Musée de Picardie, Amiens (State purchase, deposited 1885)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two women and a young man stand in the cold surf at Étaples, water to their thighs, waiting for the body of a fisherman lost at sea. One woman holds up a crucifix veiled in black crêpe, the young man grips a sprig of box, the other woman leans her grief against her companion's back. Far out, where grey sky and brown sea merge, the fishing boat and its crew are tiny marks among the waves as they bring their shipmate ashore. The boat is almost nothing in the picture, and that is its power: it carries the whole weight of the family's loss. The painting won a second-class medal at the Salon of 1883.
The vessels An unnamed Étaples fishing boat whose crew carry the body of a drowned shipmate ashore.
Sources Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Francis Tattegrain; photo Bycro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Home-made bark boat Unnamed
Boys Playing on the Shore, 1884
Artist Albert Edelfelt (1854 to 1905)
Where to see it Ateneum, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki
Medium Oil on canvas
Three boys play on the shore at Haikko, near Porvoo, with a boat they have made themselves from bark. Edelfelt painted the picture there from August to October 1884. It had a grand journey of its own: bought in Paris for the Empress Dagmar, it went to Russia and was bought back in Leningrad in 1930 by a Helsinki dealer, who sold it to the Ateneum. The little home-made boat is the first vessel of a coastal childhood, and the boys bend over it as seriously as shipwrights.
The vessels A home-made toy boat of bark, a child's plaything, sailed at the water's edge by the three boys in the painting.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Albert Edelfelt, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Newlyn luggers and landing boats Unnamed
A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach, 1884 to 1885
Artist Stanhope Forbes (1857 to 1947)
Where to see it The Box, Plymouth (Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery)
Medium Oil on canvas
Forbes settled in Newlyn in February 1884 and began at once on a vast canvas of the boats arriving with the fish, but working outdoors at that size defeated him and in June he turned to this smaller picture. Fish landed from rowing boats is auctioned on the wet sand by the jowster, among fishermen in sou'westers and oilskins and fishwives in heavy aprons, while the lug sails of the Newlyn fleet stand out on the water. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1885, it made his name and drew other painters to Newlyn. The boats frame the whole economy of the beach, before new quays and a fish market changed it.
The vessels The Newlyn fishing fleet worked under lug sails; catches were landed across the open beach in rowing boats and auctioned there, before new quays were built from 1885 and a covered fish market opened in 1908.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Stanhope Forbes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Skagen fishing boat being launched through the surf Unnamed
Launching the Boat. Skagen (Båden sættes i søen. Skagen), 1884
Artist Oscar Björck (1860 to 1929)
Where to see it Skagens Museum, Skagen
Medium Oil on canvas
The Swedish painter Björck came to Skagen in 1882, encouraged by Krøyer whom he had met in Paris, and this is the largest of his open-air paintings there, 160 by 194.5 centimetres. Fishermen launch a boat off the sand into the foaming surf; the man at the bow is Ole Svendsen, a face known from many of Ancher's pictures. Unlike Ancher's Will He Round the Point?, there is no alarm here, only everyday work, and the thick paint gives the surf its froth and the sand its coarseness. The boat in motion between beach and sea is the whole life of the village.
The vessels A Skagen fishing boat launched from the open beach by its crew.
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Scheveningen bomschuit Unnamed
Bluff Bowed Fishing Boat on the Beach at Scheveningen, c. 1885
Artist Jacob Maris (1837 to 1899)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-2810)
Medium Oil on canvas
A bomschuit stands on the beach at Scheveningen with two horses beside it and gulls wheeling over the water. The Rijksmuseum notes that Maris painted such a bluff-bowed fishing boat at least sixteen times, as studies in light and atmosphere; he worked in the studio to escape the changing light, and chose his colours indoors because it was sometimes necessary, he said, to exaggerate in order to learn the power of colour. The humble beach boat becomes a monument, its dark mass holding the whole grey sky together.
“exaggerate in order to learn about the power of colours”
The vessels Bomschuiten were the flat-bottomed fishing boats of the Scheveningen beach; with no harbour, the boats were pulled up onto the sand, as the Rijksmuseum explains for the pinks of the same shore.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia (NL)
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Banks dory and its schooner Unnamed
The Fog Warning (Halibut Fishing), 1885
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted in Homer's new studio at Prouts Neck, Maine, and first shown as Halibut Fishing, this is a story with no happy ending promised. A lone fisherman in his dory has done well, halibut weigh down the stern, but he turns to measure the distance to his ship as a fog bank rolls in. The Museum of Fine Arts notes that the streamers of fog echo, even mock, his profile. The small dory against the far mother ship makes the whole drama of the Banks fishery visible at a glance: success, isolation and the real chance of being lost.
“The Fog Warning is a painting with a narrative, though its tale is disturbing rather than charming.”
The vessels Banks dories were small, open, flat-bottomed boats, stacked on the decks of fishing schooners that served as mother ships and launched each day with one or two men to fish for cod by handline; fishermen sometimes became separated from their ships.
Sources MFA Boston · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Herring fishing dory Unnamed
The Herring Net, 1885
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1937.1039)
Medium Oil on canvas
A season among the fishing families of Tynemouth in 1881 changed Homer's art, and The Herring Net, painted at Prouts Neck, is one of the fruits. Two men work in a small dory far from the schooners on the horizon: one hauls in the net shining with herring, the other, possibly a boy, unloads the catch. The Art Institute describes the pair striving to steady the precarious boat on the swell. The dory is everything here, a floor that will not keep still, loaded to the gunwales, turning daily work into something heroic.
“the pair strives to steady the precarious boat as it rides the incoming swells”
The vessels A small dory working far from the schooners on the horizon; such dories were carried aboard fishing schooners that served as their mother ships.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Banks dory Unnamed
Lost on the Grand Banks, 1885
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Oil on canvas
One of three pictures of the lives of the local fishermen that Homer painted at his Prouts Neck studio in 1885, with The Fog Warning and The Herring Net. Where The Fog Warning leaves open whether the doryman will reach his ship, this canvas shows fishermen in mortal danger: two men in their dory, one peering over the side into the grey murk, with no ship in sight on the heaving sea. It depicts the hard lives of North Atlantic fishermen. Bought by Bill Gates in 1998, reportedly for 30 million dollars, it was then a record price for an American painting.
The vessels A dory of the Grand Banks fishery; such dories were stacked on the decks of fishing schooners and launched each day, and their men sometimes became separated from their mother ships.
Sources Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Deck of a sailing ship Unnamed
Eight Bells, 1886
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts
Medium Oil on canvas
Two sailors at the rail take the noon sight, one reading the sun with his octant while the other reads a completed sight on his. The title is the ship's bell that marks the watch. Homer grew the idea from panels he found and painted in the cabin of his brother's sloop at Prouts Neck, and he kept the ship itself to a few lines of rail and rigging so that the men dominate. Critics of 1888 praised the rolling green waves and the sturdy character of the men; a later biographer saw in them a competence to deal with anything the sea might bring.
“the sturdy, manly character of the sailors at the rail”
The vessels The vessel is not identified; Homer shows only the rail and minimal rigging of a sailing ship. The noon sight at local apparent noon was a standard way of fixing latitude in the days of celestial navigation.
Fishermen and working boats · Drawing
Caique Unnamed
Turkish Boatman in the Constantinople Harbour (Kaikroddare), 1886
Artist Anders Zorn (1860 to 1920)
Where to see it Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Medium Watercolour
On their honeymoon of almost a year Zorn and his wife reached Constantinople by sea in December 1885, and he never forgot waking at the mouth of the Bosphorus to green shores and white minarets after a land of deep snow. He was fascinated by the slender rowing boats called caiques and their oarsmen. “I soon began to paint on the water,” he wrote, and the picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studying the play of the sinewy boatman's muscles, the city shimmering behind. This second version adds an oncoming caique and a larger sailing vessel. Here Zorn's interest in the surface of water began.
The vessels The caique (kaik) was the slender rowing boat of the Bosphorus and Constantinople harbour; Zorn painted one from its stern, looking at the oarsman.
Sources Wikipedia (SV) · Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Sand barges on the Rhône at Arles Unnamed
Quay with Men Unloading Sand Barges, 1888
Artist Vincent van Gogh (1853 to 1890)
Where to see it Museum Folkwang, Essen
Medium Oil on canvas
A few hundred metres behind the Yellow House in Arles, where the railway yard meets the Rhône, Van Gogh looked down from the quay on barges being unloaded. Late in July 1888 he had seen a coal boat there, glistening and wet from a shower, small workmen carrying the cargo ashore, and wrote to Theo that it was pure Hokusai. On 13 August he described the study he was painting: two purplish pink boats, very green water, no sky, a tricolour on the mast, a workman with a wheelbarrow unloading sand. The high viewpoint flattens the barges into bold shapes of colour.
“It was pure Hokusai.”
The vessels Rhône barges unloaded by hand at the quay in Arles: sand by wheelbarrow here, coal carried ashore in the scene he had watched in July.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Vincent van Gogh, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
A Skagen fishing boat drawn up on the beach Unnamed
Two Fishermen beside a Boat (To fiskere ved en båd), 1889
Artist Michael Ancher (1849 to 1927)
Where to see it Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (KMS1360)
Medium Oil on canvas
Skagen, in the far north of Jutland, was the largest fishing community in Denmark, and its fishermen were by far the most common subject of the painters who gathered there. Michael Ancher, who settled in Skagen, painted them as heroes. Here two bearded, weathered men in sou'westers and oilskins lean on the gunwale of their boat, one with a pipe in his mouth, both gazing out to the side under a heavy grey sky, another boat hauled up on the sand behind them by the sea. The boat anchors them to the shore between trips.
The vessels An open wooden Skagen fishing boat, hauled up on the beach between trips.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Concarneau fishing boats Unnamed
Evening Calm, Concarneau, Opus 220 (Allegro Maestoso), 1891
Artist Paul Signac (1863 to 1935)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1975.1.209)
Medium Oil on canvas
Signac, Seurat's most ardent follower, painted five related pictures of fishing boats near Concarneau in Brittany and gave them musical subtitles, suggesting a symphonic arrangement. In this one, dated 1891 and subtitled Allegro maestoso, the fleet lies out on a still evening sea, sails and hulls built of precise hues laid in separate strokes, a technique he said evoked brilliantly coloured lights. The working boats of a Breton port become a pattern of rhythm and harmony, the fleet at rest turned into music.
The vessels Sailing fishing boats of Concarneau in southern Brittany; the Met describes them only as fishing boats near the town, and none is identified.
Sources The Met · Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Volga barges, tug and passenger steamer Unnamed
Fresh Wind. Volga (Svezhiy veter. Volga), 1891 to 1895
Artist Isaac Levitan (1860 to 1900)
Where to see it State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Medium Oil on canvas
Levitan's first sight of the Volga left him disappointed; he wrote to Chekhov that the river seemed dreary and dead. Four years of visits changed him, and this is the joyful result. On a sunny, windy day a tug drives a group of big-masted barges, one under a white sail, one flying the Russian flag and another the Persian, while a white passenger steamer approaches and the two exchange whistles. A lone rower in a pink shirt crosses the foreground. The painter Nesterov said that only Repin's Barge Haulers described the Volga so vividly; here the working river is full of life.
“Perhaps no picture, except for Ilya Repin's Barge Haulers on the Volga, gives such a vivid, accurate description of the Volga.”
The vessels Self-propelled masted river barges driven by a steam tug, with a passenger steamer approaching; the critic Sofia Prorokova reads the Russian and Persian flags on the barges as the Volga's link, by way of the Caspian, between Russia and the East.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (RU)
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Rowing boat in Falmouth harbour Unnamed
August Blue, 1893 to 1894
Artist Henry Scott Tuke (1858 to 1929)
Where to see it Tate, London (N01613)
Medium Oil on canvas
Tuke began this in 1893, probably in the open air on a boat in Falmouth harbour, and a rowing boat is the stage for the whole scene: four young bathers in and around it, one holding on to its side in the water, one standing in it with a towel, two sitting at the stern and by the oars. The greenish shadow of the boat falls through clear blue water, and behind, boats with square-rigged sails furled ride at anchor. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1894, it was bought the same year for the Tate, a fresh answer to the lifeless models of academy painting.
The vessels A rowing boat in Falmouth harbour; the vessels anchored behind carry square-rigged sails, furled.
Image: Henry Scott Tuke, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Hold of a Valencian fishing boat Unnamed
And They Still Say Fish Is Expensive! (¡Aún dicen que el pescado es caro!), 1894
Artist Joaquín Sorolla (1863 to 1923)
Where to see it Museo del Prado, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
Two fishermen tend a companion who has been injured, lying in the interior of their boat with his chest bare and a medal, probably of the Virgen del Carmen, patroness of seafarers, at his throat. Around them are the things of a working boat: a lamp, a barrel of fresh water, ropes, a few fish. The title comes from Blasco Ibáñez's novel Flor de Mayo, set on the beaches of the Cabañal in Valencia, where the aunt of a drowned fisherman cries out against those who haggle over the price of fish. The picture won a first-class medal in 1895 and was bought by the state that year.
The vessels The scene is set inside a Valencian fishing boat among the everyday things of the crew; the novel behind the title is set on the beaches of the Cabañal quarter of Valencia.
Sources Wikipedia (ES) · Wikipedia
Image: Joaquín Sorolla, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Fishing boat Unnamed
Lunch on the Boat (La comida en la barca), 1898
Artist Joaquín Sorolla (1863 to 1923)
Where to see it Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
A crew of fishermen and boys gather to prepare their meal aboard their boat, in the shade of the sail, on a large canvas of 180 by 250 centimetres finished in 1898. Sorolla, born in Valencia, was then making his name with big canvases of working life; his Return from Fishing of 1894 had been admired at the Paris Salon and bought by the French state. The Academy of San Fernando bought this picture itself at the National Exhibition of 1899 for 30,000 pesetas. Here the boat is table as well as workplace, the crew resting between labours.
The vessels An unnamed sailing fishing boat; the painting shows several fishermen preparing their meal aboard, under a sail spread over the deck.
Sources Wikipedia (ES) · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Joaquín Sorolla, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Rowing boat with children handline fishing Unnamed
Chadding in Mount's Bay, 1902
Artist Stanhope Forbes (1857 to 1947)
Where to see it Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Medium Oil on canvas
Here Forbes, a founding member of the Newlyn School, turns from the hardship of fishing to its summer side: a rowing boat of children handline fishing, a pastime known locally as chadding, on the water of Mount's Bay. The painting reflects the influence of Impressionism on the colony. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1902 and acquired by Worcester City Art Gallery in 1914, it has been voted the most popular work in the gallery's collection. The small boat, rocking on the bay, holds a whole childhood by the sea.
The vessels A small rowing boat of children handline fishing, known locally as chadding, in Mount's Bay, Cornwall.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Stanhope Forbes, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Drawing
Bahamian-type fishing sloops at Key West Unnamed
Fishing Boats, Key West, 1903
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (10.228.1)
Medium Watercolour and graphite on paper
Although Homer's title places it at Key West, the Met notes that the watercolour appears to show typical Bahamian fishing boats, a reminder of the many Black Bahamians who moved to Key West after the Civil War to pursue familiar maritime trades. Homer worked with a rapid application of fluid washes and a carefully calculated use of the white paper, and drew the rigging and sails with lyrical graphite lines that make the sea breeze almost visible. It is a record of a working boat made at the speed of the wind that drives her.
The vessels The Met identifies them as typical Bahamian fishing boats, the craft of Bahamian fishermen who had settled at Key West.
Fishermen and working boats · Drawing
Small sailing boat at Key West, a sailor stowing her sail Unnamed
Stowing Sail, 1903
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1933.1252)
Medium Watercolour over graphite on paper
Homer painted this sheet on 22 December 1903, during his winter visit to Key West, and it keeps the speed of the moment. A man gathers in the sail of his boat; Homer's quick graphite lines fix the main contours, and changes in the underdrawing show that the figure was first leaning further forward, as though Homer was working fast to keep up with him. Washes laid wet into wet let the colours run, so that a heavy red stroke at the bow bleeds into the blue shadow on the side. It is a portrait of work on the water made almost as fast as the work itself.
“the heavy, red stroke at the front of the boat”
The vessels A small local sailing boat, painted at Key West, where Homer indulged his interest in the details of local boating.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Canoe on the Saguenay rapids Unnamed
Shooting the Rapids, Saguenay River, 1905 to 1910
Artist Winslow Homer (1836 to 1910)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (11.57)
Medium Oil on canvas with chalk
Left unfinished in Homer's studio when he died, this canvas was inspired, the family said, by an especially perilous run down the rapids of the Saguenay in remote Quebec. The frightened passenger gripping the sides of the canoe is his older brother Charles, his frequent companion on fishing trips, while the guides fight the white water. The Met observes that of all the men in boats Homer painted across his career, it is fitting that the last remains in a liminal state. The unfinished canoe is caught forever in the moment of danger.
“Of the many images of men in boats painted across Homer's career, it is fitting that the last one remains in a liminal state”
The vessels A river canoe worked by guides, here carrying Homer's brother Charles down the rapids of the Saguenay in remote Quebec on what family stories recall as an especially perilous run.
Sources The Met
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
Achill currach Unnamed
Launching the Currach, 1910 to 1911
Artist Paul Henry (1876 to 1958)
Where to see it National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Medium Oil on canvas
Paul Henry studied in Paris at the Académie Julian and with Whistler, returned to Ireland in 1910 and lived on Achill Island until 1919, learning to capture the peculiar interplay of light and landscape of the west of Ireland. Launching the Currach belongs to those first Achill years, painted in 1910 to 1911, and its subject is work and the sea: islanders getting the light boat afloat. In the 1920s and 1930s Henry became Ireland's most renowned artist and did much to shape the popular image of the west, and here, near the start, it is the currach that carries that image.
The vessels The currach is a type of Irish boat with a wooden frame over which animal skins or hides were once stretched, though canvas later became more usual.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, where the original is kept. Photo: David Kernan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Painting
A sailing ship seen from aloft Unnamed
Aloft (Til Værs), undated
Artist Christian Krohg (1852 to 1925)
Where to see it Norwegian Maritime Museum, Oslo (NSM.K02978)
Medium Oil on paper mounted on cardboard
Krohg takes us up into the rigging. A seaman in oilskins and sou'wester hangs over the yard, struggling with a heavy sail that bellies around him, while far below the rail of the ship slants across the corner of the picture. There is no horizon to hold on to, only canvas, rope and wind. Krohg painted Norwegian seamen again and again over thirty years, the sou'wester his mark of the seafarer, and here he gives the hardest part of their work, handling sail high aloft. The ship itself is felt rather than seen.
The vessels A square-rigged Norwegian sailing vessel; sailors went aloft onto the yards to reef and furl the sails by hand.
Sources digitaltmuseum.no · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (NO)
Image: Christian Krohg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fishermen and working boats · Print
Whaleboat stove by a sperm whale, with a whaleship Unnamed
Cachalot Fishery (Pêche du Cachalot), undated
Artist After Ambroise-Louis Garneray (1783 to 1857)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAJ2543)
Medium Aquatint and etching
In Moby-Dick Herman Melville called two large French engravings after paintings by 'one Garnery', showing attacks on the sperm and the right whale, the finest pictures of whales and whaling to be found anywhere. In the sperm whale scene, he wrote, the whale rises beneath the boat and lifts the shattered planks high on its back, an oarsman leaps from the prow as if from a precipice, the line tub and harpoons float on the whitened sea, and the ship bears down out of the black stormy distance. Melville did not know who Garnery was, but judged the action wonderfully good and true.
“a noble Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath the boat from the profundities of the ocean”
The vessels Sperm whales were hunted from open whaleboats lowered from a whaleship, and a struck whale could smash a boat, as Melville describes in this subject. The boat and ship are unnamed.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · gutenberg.org
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Grain barge shooting the Rainbow Bridge Unnamed
Along the River During the Qingming Festival (Qingming shanghe tu), Northern Song dynasty, early 12th century
Artist Zhang Zeduan (1085 to 1145)
Where to see it Palace Museum, Beijing
Medium Handscroll; ink and colour on silk
This five-metre scroll counts 814 people and 28 boats, and its dramatic heart is a boat. At the great bridge, the centre of the whole composition, a big river craft comes in at an awkward angle with its tow mast not fully lowered, threatening to crash into the bridge; the crowds shout and gesture, and someone near the top of the arch lowers a rope to the crew. An inscription of 1186, based on a catalogue by the Jin imperial curator Zhang Zhu, says Zhang Zeduan took particular pleasure in depicting boats, and the whole city seems to hold its breath over one mistake in seamanship.
“He mastered jiehua and took particular pleasure in depicting boats, carts, markets, bridges, city walls, and streets.”
The vessels The boats are the fishing boats, passenger ferries and larger cargo craft of the river through the Northern Song capital, present-day Kaifeng; men on the bank hauled the larger ships.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Indian Ocean sewn-plank ship Unnamed
Abu Zayd and al-Harith Sailing to Oman, from the Maqamat of al-Hariri (Maqama 39), the Schefer Hariri, 1237
Artist Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti (13th century)
Where to see it Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (MS Arabe 5847, fol. 119v)
Medium Manuscript illustration
Al-Wasiti copied and illustrated this manuscript of al-Hariri's Assemblies in 1237, probably in Baghdad, and it is probably the most applauded of all illustrated copies. In the thirty-ninth tale the rogue Abu Zayd and the narrator take ship for Oman, and al-Wasiti gives a detailed picture of a sea-going ship: the stitching that joins her planks, the stern rudder, a grapnel anchor, sailors bailing, a lookout boy aloft and the merchants peering from their cabin. Beneath the wit of the story lies a precise record of how such a ship was built and worked.
The vessels A sewn-plank ship, her planks joined by stitching rather than nails, with a stern rudder and grapnel anchor, carrying merchants on the voyage to Oman; the vessel is not named.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Mongol and Japanese ships at the Battle of Kōan Unnamed
Illustrated Account of the Mongol Invasion (Mōko Shūrai Ekotoba), second scroll, c. 1293
Artist Unknown painters, commissioned by Takezaki Suenaga (1246 to 1314)
Where to see it Museum of the Imperial Collections, Tokyo Imperial Palace
Medium Handscroll; ink and colour on paper
The samurai Takezaki Suenaga commissioned these scrolls to record his deeds against the Mongol invaders, and in the second he goes to sea. Turned away from a general's ship, he finds a boat, takes off his helmet and sets out with other warriors to board a Mongol vessel in the Battle of Kōan of 1281, fighting hand to hand on her deck. The scrolls contain some of the earliest artistic depictions of the Mongol invasions. They date themselves to 1293, were retouched many times, and were lost before being rediscovered in the eighteenth century.
The vessels The Mongol Yuan fleets attacked Japan in 1274 and 1281; at Kōan in 1281 Japanese warriors in small boats went out to raid the invasion ships.
Sources Wikipedia
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Imperial dragon boats on Jinming Lake Unnamed
Dragon Boat Regatta on Jinming Lake, 14th century
Artist After Wang Zhenpeng (active c. 1275 to 1330)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (66.174a)
Medium Handscroll; ink on silk
The scroll records a regatta sponsored by Emperor Huizong on Jinming Lake, in an imperial park of the Northern Song capital at Kaifeng. It is a showpiece of jiehua, ruled-line painting, the meticulous technique for architecture that Wang Zhenpeng perfected, and here it serves the boats: great dragon-prowed craft, oarsmen in rows, pavilions afloat. Wang painted the composition for Emperor Renzong in 1310 and again for the Grand Elder Princess Sennge in 1323; at least five other versions exist, and the Met's is a later fourteenth-century copy of that famous design.
“The picture is a remarkable example of jiehua, or ‘ruled-line,’ painting, the intricate style of depicting architecture perfected by Wang Zhenpeng.”
The vessels Dragon boat races were traditionally held on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month in memory of the minister Qu Yuan; the race shown was held on the third day of the third month at Kaifeng in the reign of Huizong (1101 to 1125).
Sources The Met · Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
The Ship of Shi'ism Myth and legend
Firdausi's Parable of the Ship of Shi'ism, folio 18v from the Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Shah Tahmasp, c. 1530 to 1535
Artist Attributed to Mirza 'Ali (c. 1509 to 1575)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1970.301.1)
Medium Opaque watercolour, ink, silver and gold on paper
In the introduction to the Book of Kings, Firdausi imagines God launching seventy ships into a stormy sea, each carrying the followers of a faith. For Shah Tahmasp's great Shahnama, probably the most fully illustrated manuscript of the epic ever produced, Mirza 'Ali painted the finest of them. Beneath a red canopy sit the Prophet and his successor 'Ali, with 'Ali's sons Hasan and Husain close by, while a sailor climbs the mast, oarsmen work in the boats alongside and fish swim in the dark water below. The ship is salvation made visible, a vessel of faith riding safely on the storm.
The legend An allegorical vessel from Firdausi's preface to the Shahnama, painted in Safavid Tabriz as a richly fitted ship with a canopied deckhouse, a mast with a red sail and a crew.
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Bridge of boats outside Agra fort Unnamed
Akbar's Adventures with the Elephant Hawa'i, from the Akbarnama (double page composition), c. 1590 to 1595
Artist Basawan (design) and Chetar (painting), Mughal court workshop
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IS.2:21-1896 and IS.2:22-1896)
Medium Opaque watercolour and gold on paper
In 1561, outside the fort of Agra, the young emperor Akbar mounted the royal elephant Hawa'i, one of the strongest and most difficult in his stables, and pitted him against another fierce elephant, Ran Bagha. Ran Bagha fled across a bridge of boats over the Jumna with Hawa'i and his rider in pursuit, and the bridge lurched and collapsed under their weight. Basawan designed this double page for the official history of the reign and makes the boats carry the drama, tipping under the animals as servants dive into the river. On the facing page the prime minister Ataga Khan and the court raise their hands in prayer for the emperor's safety.
The vessels A bridge of boats is a line of river craft moored side by side and decked over to carry a road across a river; this one crossed the Jumna outside Agra fort.
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Royal river boat of Mariam Makani Unnamed
Akbar's Mother Mariam Makani Travelling by Boat to Agra, from the Akbarnama, c. 1590 to 1595
Artist Tulsi (outline) and Durga (painting), Mughal court workshop
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IS.2:4-1896)
Medium Opaque watercolour and gold on paper
The official history of Akbar's reign shows the royal ladies travelling from Delhi to Agra by river. The women themselves are hidden inside curtained structures on each boat, but the boat at the centre, with its extra tier and red curtains, the colour of royalty, may well have carried the emperor's mother, Mariam Makani. The painters make the vessel itself the sign of her rank: we never see her, only the boat that carries her and the care lavished on it. Among the battles and hunts of the Akbarnama, it is a rare quiet voyage.
The vessels A Mughal royal river boat with a great sail and a two tier curtained structure, travelling with other curtained boats from Delhi to Agra; the vessel is not named.
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Mughal war boats on the Ganges Unnamed
Shuja'at Khan Pursuing Asaf Khan on the Ganges, from the Akbarnama, c. 1590 to 1595
Artist Tulsi the Elder (outline) and Jagjivan (painting), Mughal court workshop
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IS.2:47-1896)
Medium Opaque watercolour and gold on paper
In 1565 Akbar's vizier Asaf Khan, a highly effective general, kept back treasure seized on a successful campaign and tried to flee with his supporters across the Ganges. The emperor's forces under Shuja'at Khan caught up with him on the river, and Tulsi the Elder and Jagjivan paint the fierce clash as a fight between boats crowded with armoured men. Asaf Khan got away, and in 1567 he asked for forgiveness and received it. The page comes from the V&A's Akbarnama, thought to be the earliest illustrated copy of the text, made for Akbar himself.
The vessels Mughal river boats used as fighting craft on the Ganges in north-east India in 1565; none is named.
Image: Tulsi the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Boats of Alexander's fleet and the pirates Myth and legend
Alexander Fights a Sea Battle, folio from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi, 1597 to 1598
Artist Dharmadas
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (13.228.32)
Medium Ink, opaque watercolour and gold on paper
In Amir Khusrau's retelling of the Alexander romance, Alexander has a tall tower built, crowned by a revolving mirror, to fight the pirates who menace the Mediterranean; Khusrau made the mirror a magical reflection of everything within sixty leagues. Dharmadas, painting for the emperor Akbar's copy of the poem, turns the ancient legend into a naval battle of his own day: turbaned men in tunics fight from crowded boats around the pale tower, one of them with a firearm, an anachronism the Met points out. The boats, with red sails and curved prows, are the boats of India put to sea in the service of a myth.
The legend Legendary vessels drawn as the boats of Mughal India, with high curved prows, single sails and crews of soldiers.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Alexander's ship on the western sea Myth and legend
Alexander is Lowered into the Sea, folio from a Khamsa (Quintet) of Amir Khusrau Dihlavi, 1597 to 1598
Artist Attributed to Mukunda, Mughal court workshop
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (13.228.27)
Medium Ink, watercolour and gold on paper
Amir Khusrau's Alexander journeys as far as the Western Isles, and at sea he is lowered into the water in a glass diving bell; in the depths an angel will foretell his death. The painter shows the moment of descent: the ship crowded with anxious men leaning over the side, the bell sinking with Alexander inside, a great fish nosing nearby, and more boats and a rocky shore beyond. Made for the emperor Akbar's copy of Amir Khusrau's Khamsa, it shows a ship as the gateway between the known world and the unknown.
The legend A legendary vessel from the Alexander romance, drawn as a Mughal sailing boat with a tall mast, a long red pennant and a planked hull.
Image: Attributed to Mukunda, Mughal court workshop, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Portuguese carrack (kurofune, the Black Ship) Unnamed
Arrival of the Southern Barbarians (Nanban byōbu), pair of six-panel folding screens, late 16th to early 17th century
Artist Kanō Naizen (1570 to 1616)
Where to see it Kobe City Museum (Important Cultural Property)
Medium Pair of six-panel folding screens; mineral pigments on gold-leafed paper
Kanō Naizen's screens are counted among the masterworks of Nanban byōbu, of which over 90 pairs survive. On the left a great ship with billowing sails leaves a fantastic foreign harbour of domes and dragons; on the right a ship has completed her voyage, cargo is unloaded and Portuguese captains are welcomed by Jesuit missionaries and Japanese converts, beside goods of pelts, silks and ceramics and a church with a crucifix on its altar. The black-hulled carrack, set against gold leaf, is the reason for everything else: trade, faith, curiosity and wealth all arrive on her deck.
The vessels The Portuguese called these ships nau do trato or nau da China; the Japanese called them kurofune, black ships, for their hulls painted black with pitch. Of about 400 to 600 tons at first and later over 1,200 or 1,600 tons, many were built of Indian teak at Goa, Bassein or Daman, and they carried Chinese silk to Japan in exchange for silver until Portuguese trade was prohibited in 1639.
Sources kobecitymuseum.jp · Wikipedia
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Portuguese carrack (kurofune) at Nagasaki Unnamed
Nanban Folding Screens (Namban byōbu), pair of six-panel screens, 16th or 17th century
Artist Attributed to Kanō Domi
Where to see it Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon (inv. 1638 Mov and 1639 Mov)
Medium Pair of six-panel folding screens; paper on wooden lattice, gold leaf, polychrome tempera, silk, lacquer and gilt copper
The Lisbon screens show the arrival of Portuguese ships at Nagasaki, and the curiosity and festive mood the black ship stirred in the port. The museum singles out the care with which the painter recorded the vessel and her cargo, alongside the Jesuit missionaries who travelled with the trade. Painted in Japan and now in Portugal, the screens have made the reverse journey of the ship they celebrate, records of the exchange that began when the Portuguese reached Japan in 1543.
“the curiosity and festive atmosphere aroused by the arrival of the black ship of the namban jin”
The vessels The Portuguese carracks of the Japan voyage grew from about 400 to 600 tons to as many as 1,200 or 1,600 tons; they sailed from Goa via Malacca and Macau to Nagasaki, the anchorage of the Portuguese from 1571, until their trade was prohibited in 1639.
Sources Google Arts & Culture · Wikipedia
Image: Attributed to Kanō Domi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Akbar's imperial barges Unnamed
Akbar's Expedition by Boat to the Eastern Provinces, from the Akbarnama, 1602 to 1604
Artist Mughal court workshop
Where to see it Philadelphia Museum of Art (1967-30-398)
In 1574 Akbar took his court and army east by river, and this page shows him on campaign. Dressed in white, with his distinctive features, the emperor sits giving orders in the centre of the second boat from the bottom. According to the chronicler Abu'l Fazl, the barges made for this expedition were veritable floating palaces, and the painter packs them with soldiers, oarsmen and attendants. The museum sees in such pages the imperial workshop fusing Persian, Indian and European ideas into a distinctive Mughal style.
“the barges made for this expedition [were] veritable floating palaces with spaces for all the court functions”
The vessels Mughal state barges were large oared river craft fitted with cabins and pavilions; Akbar used them on his 1574 campaign to the eastern provinces.
Sources Philadelphia Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Mughal court workshop, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Ship of Kai Khusrau Myth and legend
Kai Khusrau Crosses the Sea, folio from a Shahnama (Book of Kings) of Firdausi, c. 1610
Artist Deccani court painter, Bijapur
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1982.476.3)
Medium Ink, opaque watercolour and gold on paper
Pursuing his enemy Afrasiyab, the hero king Kai Khusrau takes to the sea and is blown off course by a fearful storm to a place full of strange sea creatures. This small page, with its exquisite detail and lavish gold, comes from a Deccani Shahnama made around 1610 for a courtly patron at Bijapur, a place the Met identifies from its pastel palette, fantastic rocks and small white buildings. The ship rides a grey sea under two striped sails, the crowned king and his companions aboard, while fish and monsters swim around the hull and the gold panels of text frame the voyage like a treasure.
The legend A legendary ship from the Persian national epic, painted with a planked hull and two striped square sails.
Sources The Met
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Portuguese carrack (kurofune) Unnamed
Nanban Screens (Namban byōbu), pair of six-panel folding screens, early 17th century
Artist Attributed to Kanō Sanraku (1559 to 1635)
Where to see it Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo (Important Cultural Property)
Medium Pair of six-panel folding screens; gold, ink, silk and metal on textile
Sanraku was a page to Toyotomi Hideyoshi before Kanō Eitoku adopted him into the Kanō school, and after Eitoku's death he became its head, so these screens come from the heart of Momoyama painting. The museum describes them as portraying the arrival of Westerners in Japan after guns were first imported in 1543: on the right screen a Western ship lies in port with her captain and missionaries, on the left an exotic terrace with foreign women and dogs. The black ship here is less a vessel than a wonder, the floating proof of a world beyond Japan that the Portuguese had opened and that the shogunate would soon close.
The vessels The carracks of the Portuguese Japan trade, called kurofune by the Japanese, sailed between Goa, Macao and Nagasaki from the 1540s until 1639, carrying Chinese silk in exchange for Japanese silver.
Sources Google Arts & Culture · Wikipedia
Image: Attributed to Kanō Sanraku, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Boats and prahus at the Batavia fish market Unnamed
The Castle of Batavia, Seen from Kali Besar West, c. 1662
Artist Andries Beeckman (1628 to 1664)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (SK-A-19)
Medium Oil on canvas
This painting once hung in the assembly room of the Dutch East India Company's headquarters in Amsterdam, a view of the company's Asian capital for the men who ran it. Beeckman sets a market under palm trees before the castle, and the Rijksmuseum points out that the people could never all have been there together: Japanese, Indians, formerly enslaved mardijkers in striped clothes, a Javanese fruit seller, a Chinese person fishing, Moluccans playing football with a rattan ball. The boats drawn up on the shore belong to that mixed world, and Beeckman even signed his name on an upturned boat.
“These people would never have all been together at the same time!”
The vessels Batavia, today Jakarta, was the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company in Asia; the small boats drawn up by the market are local craft, not identified by the museum.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Andries Beeckman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
River boats of the Qing court version Unnamed
Along the River During the Qingming Festival (Qing Court Version), 1736
Artist Chen Mei, Sun Hu, Jin Kun, Dai Hong and Cheng Zhidao, painters of the Qing court
Where to see it National Palace Museum, Taipei
Medium Handscroll; ink and colour on silk
Commissioned by the Yongzheng emperor and finished after his death by five court painters, this 1736 version of Zhang Zeduan's famous scroll is quite different from the Song original. The river still carries the story from quiet countryside to crowded city, past the Rainbow Bridge and its markets, now lined with shops, through the city gates and streets to the literati gardens and the Jinming Lake at its end. Artists made hundreds of versions of the composition over the centuries, and in this one the river and its boats become a procession through a whole imagined capital.
The vessels The vessels are generic Chinese river craft of the eighteenth century as imagined by court painters, placed in a Song dynasty setting.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Junks on the Yellow River Unnamed
The Qianlong Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour, Scroll Four: The Confluence of the Huai and Yellow Rivers, 1770
Artist Xu Yang (1712 to after 1777) and workshop
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1984.16a to c)
Medium Handscroll; ink and colour on silk
The fourth of twelve scrolls recording the Qianlong emperor's southern inspection tour of 1751 shows him inspecting flood control on the Yellow River, at a spillway where the waters of the Huai flow into the silt-laden Yellow to carry its sediment out to sea. Double sluice gates guard the Grand Canal, and levees are faced with stone and repaired with bundles of sorghum. Across the immense patterned sweep of water, sailing junks and official boats move along the dikes, tiny against the engineering. Xu Yang used a Western-style unified perspective learned from Jesuit painters at court, and the boats give the river its scale.
The vessels The junks are the river craft of the Grand Canal and Yellow River system in the mid-eighteenth century, shown during the emperor's 1751 tour.
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Imperial flotilla on the Grand Canal Unnamed
The Qianlong Emperor's Southern Inspection Tour, Scroll Six: Entering Suzhou along the Grand Canal, 1770
Artist Xu Yang (1712 to after 1777) and assistants
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1988.350a to d)
Medium Handscroll; ink and colour on silk
Xu Yang, a native of Suzhou, was commissioned by the Qianlong emperor to record his historic 1751 tour of south China in twelve monumental handscrolls, and this is the longest of the twelve. It follows the lavish pageantry of the emperor's arrival at Suzhou along the Grand Canal, the waterway that made such tours possible, and the boats are part of the pomp, a great decorated barge hauled along by a line of trackers past houses, shops and gardens. The scroll is dated 1770, and its careful detail offers a rare view of daily life in an eighteenth-century Chinese city.
“chronicles the lavish pageantry of the emperor's arrival in Suzhou”
The vessels The Grand Canal carried grain and traffic between south China and Beijing, and it also allowed the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors to make their tours of inspection to the south; the boats shown are the imperial barges and canal craft of the 1751 tour.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Takarabune, the Treasure Ship of the Seven Lucky Gods Myth and legend
Takarabune (The Treasure Ship), c. 1775 to 1793
Artist Katsukawa Shunshō (1726 to 1793)
Where to see it Brooklyn Museum, New York (76.151.43)
Medium Woodblock print
In Japanese folklore the Seven Lucky Gods pilot the Takarabune, the Treasure Ship, through the heavens and into human ports during the first three days of the New Year, carrying the hat of invisibility, the inexhaustible purse, the magic mallet and other treasures. A print of the ship placed under the pillow on the night of 2 January was meant to bring a lucky dream, and after a bad one the print could be thrown into a river. Shunshō fits the ship into a sheet only 11.7 cm wide and nearly 70 cm tall: the gods crowd the deck beneath a great striped sail, a crane flies overhead and waves curl below the hull.
The legend A mythical ship of the Seven Lucky Gods; pictures of it are part of Japanese New Year celebrations, a custom that began among the nobility around the Muromachi period and spread to commoners in the later Edo period.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Katsukawa Shunshō, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Drawing
Chop boat (water melon boat) Unnamed
Chop Boat (Water Melon Boat), from a set of fifty paintings of Pearl River vessels, 1800 to 1820
Artist Unknown Guangzhou export painter
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (8655:4)
Medium Watercolour and ink on paper
This sheet comes from a folio of fifty paintings made in Guangzhou to show the different kinds of boat that crowded the Pearl River, pictures produced in quantity as souvenirs. It shows a chop boat, named after the chop, the official stamp showing that a cargo had cleared customs. Its round decks and sides, almost wholly enclosed by a semicircular cabin, made it look like a melon, and the Chinese called it a water melon boat. Lord Macartney, the first British ambassador to China, wrote that the river of Canton was covered with boats and vessels of every sort, and sets like this one recorded that crowd for visitors.
“the river of Canton is covered with boats and vessels of various sorts and sizes”
The vessels A Pearl River cargo boat almost entirely enclosed by a semicircular cabin, with a single mast; its name comes from the chop, the customs stamp that showed its cargo had been cleared.
Sources V&A
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Christopher Hilton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Japan, China and the East · Drawing
Lord Hastings' flotilla of pinnace budgerows Unnamed
Lord Hastings' Flotilla on the River at Buxar, with many Pinnace Budgerows, from Views by Seeta Ram from Patna to Benares, volume II, 1814 to 1815
Artist Sita Ram (active c. 1810 to 1822)
Where to see it British Library, London (Add.Or.4711)
Medium Watercolour
On 28 June 1814 the new Governor-General, Lord Moira, later Marquess of Hastings, embarked at Barrackpore in a flotilla of no fewer than 220 boats, and the Indian artist Sita Ram went with him to paint the journey up the Ganges. Here the fleet lies at Buxar, a crowd of pinnace budgerows, some with palanquins on their roofs, beneath a small British station on the cliffs; the two largest boats carried Lord and Lady Hastings and their children. Sita Ram's albums lay unknown for 150 years in the Bute collection in Scotland, and the British Library calls them a grand diorama of north India.
“The party embarked on 28 June 1814 at Barrackpore in a flotilla of no less than 220 boats.”
The vessels Budgerows were large, slow, keelless boats with long cabins divided into rooms, used for journeys on the Ganges before the railways; they carried sails but often had to be towed, covering no more than 17 to 20 miles a day.
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Dutch ship Handelmaatschappij Named ship
Dutch Residents and Japanese Women Watching the Arrival of a Dutch Ship at Dejima, 1820s
Artist Kawahara Keiga (1786 to c. 1860)
Medium Painting
Kawahara Keiga worked for some thirty years as a painter at the Dutch trading post of Dejima, and here he paints the event that mattered most in its year: the arrival of a Dutch ship. She comes in far off across the bay, towed by a long line of Japanese rowing boats, while on a rooftop lookout the Dutch residents watch: Heinrich Bürger with a telescope, Philipp Franz von Siebold in a white suit, a Javanese servant, and Siebold's Japanese partner Kusumoto Taki with their baby daughter Ine on her back. The distant ship is the island's lifeline and the whole reason these people are there.
The real ship From 1641 only Dutch and Chinese ships were allowed to trade at Nagasaki; the ship here is towed into harbour by many Japanese rowing boats.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Drawing
Kora kora of the Sultan of Tidore and Zr.Ms. Admiraal Evertsen Named ship
A Kora Kora with the Sultan of Tidore and the Dutch Ship of the Line Evertsen Firing Salutes at Tidore, 1817, c. 1820
Artist Quirijn Maurits Rudolph Ver Huell (1787 to 1860)
Where to see it Maritiem Museum Rotterdam
Ver Huell was a naval officer who also painted, and in 1817 he commanded the Dutch ship of the line Admiraal Evertsen in the Moluccas. Here the Sultan of Tidore comes out in his kora kora, the long Moluccan rowing vessel, while Evertsen fires her salutes. The two ships embody two worlds meeting: the long, low craft with rows of rowers and streaming flags, and the tall European warship wreathed in gun smoke. Two years later, in 1819, Evertsen foundered near Diego Garcia under Ver Huell's command with a cargo of irreplaceable botanical specimens aboard.
The real ship Kora koras were narrow Moluccan rowing vessels about ten metres long, with bamboo outriggers carrying a platform for the rowers, used for trade and war; bigger ones could carry over 100 rowers. Zr.Ms. Admiraal Evertsen was a Dutch ship of the line that foundered near Diego Garcia in 1819 under Ver Huell's command.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Quirijn Maurits Rudolph Ver Huell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Coastal cargo ship off Kazusa Unnamed
At Sea off Kazusa (Kazusa no kairo), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830 to 1832
Artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760 to 1849)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP21)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
In a series devoted to a mountain, Hokusai here gives almost the whole sheet to ships. A big coastal trader fills the foreground, her planked hull, deck cargo and great square sail drawn close, with a second ship beside her, and Mount Fuji appears only as a tiny white cone on the horizon beneath her rigging lines. Hokusai treats this working vessel, on the sea route off Kazusa Province, with the same attention he gave the sacred peak. The contrast between the huge hull and the distant mountain is the whole idea of the print.
The vessels Large wooden sailing ships with a single great square sail carried Japan's domestic coastal trade in the Edo period; the dominant type, the bezaisen, had a standard capacity of about 250 seki, with ships of over 1,000 seki appearing by the late Edo period. The Met does not name the type shown.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Sailing boats returning to Yabase on Lake Biwa Unnamed
Returning Sails at Yabase (Yabase no kihan), from the series Eight Views of Ōmi, 1830 to 1838
Artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 to 1858)
Where to see it Brooklyn Museum, New York (39.586)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
Returning sails is one of the eight classic themes that Japan borrowed from the Chinese Eight Views of Xiaoxiang and set in Ōmi province around Lake Biwa. Yabase was an old harbour on the east side of the lake, near the Tōkaidō, where travellers took the boat as a short cut to Ōtsu. Hiroshige turns the theme into evening light: a line of white sails sliding home across still water under a golden sky and a dark mountain, the boats small, calm and certain of their way.
The vessels The boats of Yabase carried travellers across Lake Biwa as a short cut to Ōtsu; in the early Meiji era steamers appeared, until the railway began its service.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Utagawa Hiroshige, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Two cargo boats in the surf of Tago Bay Unnamed
Tago Bay near Ejiri on the Tōkaidō (Tōkaidō Ejiri Tago no ura ryaku zu), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830 to 1832
Artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760 to 1849)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP1288)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
Two long boats labour through a choppy sea close under the shore, their crews bent at the oars and poles, while the whole upper half of the sheet belongs to Mount Fuji, a vast blue and white cone rising over the villages and trees of Tago Bay. Hokusai sets human effort and the serene mountain in the same frame, the contrast between sacred Fuji and ordinary life that scholars see running through the whole series. The boats are pushed right into the foreground, cut off by the margins, as if the viewer were standing in the water beside them.
The vessels Open wooden coastal boats worked by oar and pole along the Tōkaidō shore; the craft shown are not identified.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Cargo and fishing boats off Tsukudajima Unnamed
Tsukudajima in Musashi Province (Buyō Tsukudajima), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830 to 1832
Artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760 to 1849)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP23)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
Hokusai crowds the waters off Tsukuda Island in Edo with craft: a heavy boat piled high with cargo in the foreground, small boats sculled across the calm bay, and behind the low island a forest of bare masts where larger ships lay at anchor. Mount Fuji sits pale and small on the far shore. It is a portrait of the working harbour of the shogun's capital, every craft busy, with the sacred mountain calm above the traffic.
The vessels The boats are the lighters, ferries and fishing craft of Edo Bay; the masts behind the island belong to coastal cargo ships anchored off the city.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Oshiokuri bune (fast fish barges) Unnamed
Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830 to 1832
Artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760 to 1849)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP1847)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
Everyone remembers the wave; fewer notice that the picture is really about three boats. They are oshiokuri bune, the fast barges that carried live fish from the Izu and Bōsō peninsulas to the markets of Edo Bay, each with eight rowers holding their oars as the crest curls over them. Mount Fuji, the subject of the series, shrinks to a small blue triangle in the trough. Hokusai, past seventy and in hard times, set human labour between the violence of the sea and the calm of the sacred mountain, and the tension still holds.
“Hokusai cleverly played with perspective to make Japan's grandest mountain appear as a small triangular mound within the hollow of the cresting wave.”
The vessels Oshiokuri bune were slender oared boats, generally 12 to 15 metres long, used in Edo Bay to carry live fish to market at speed. Using the boats as a scale, the wave has been estimated at 10 to 12 metres high.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Cargo boat moored among the reeds at Ushibori Unnamed
Ushibori in Hitachi Province (Jōshū Ushibori), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830 to 1832
Artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760 to 1849)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP27)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
Ushibori, today part of Itako in Ibaraki, was a place of reed beds and open water, and Hokusai shows a quiet moment aboard a big cargo boat moored in the shallows. The long hull runs diagonally across the sheet, its matted deckhouse open to reveal the cabin, and a boatman leans out to empty a pail over the side; the splash startles two white herons into the air. Beyond the reeds rises a snow-white Fuji. It is one of the most domestic images in the series, a boat as a home.
The vessels A long, flat-bottomed working boat with a mat roofed cabin amidships, of the kind used on the inland waters around Ushibori; the boat itself is not identified.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Onmaya ferry boat on the Sumida river Unnamed
Viewing the Sunset over Ryōgoku Bridge from the Onmaya Embankment (Onmayagashi yori Ryōgokubashi sekiyō o miru), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, c. 1830 to 1831
Artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760 to 1849)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP2997)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
At the end of the day a ferry pushes off from the Onmaya embankment on the Sumida, packed with passengers under wide hats and a parasol, bundles at their feet, while the boatman leans on his long oar. Behind them the great wooden Ryōgoku bridge stretches across the river, and beyond it Fuji shows as a dark silhouette against the evening sky. Hokusai makes the ferry a little floating crowd of Edo life, a small crossing at day's end with the mountain beyond.
The vessels An open ferry boat worked by a single boatman, carrying passengers across the Sumida from the Onmaya embankment in Edo, today Kuramae in Taitō, Tokyo.
Image: Katsushika Hokusai, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Fishing boats off Chōshi Unnamed
Fishing Boats at Chōshi in Shimōsa (Sōshū Chōshi), from the series One Thousand Pictures of the Ocean, also read as Oceans of Wisdom (Chie no umi), c. 1833 to 1834
Artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760 to 1849)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1983.583)
Medium Colour woodblock print, chūban
Oceans of Wisdom was a small series of ten fishing scenes, one of Hokusai's rarest, and publication stopped abruptly. Its theme is people expressing themselves through labour and working in harmony with the forces of nature, and Chōshi is the print where that harmony is most tested: fishing boats struggle through a stormy sea, echoing the Great Wave made at almost the same moment. Writers who read the Great Wave from right to left point to this print, where the wake shows a boat driving against the current. The whole image is about effort, the crew bent to their work as the water heaps up around them.
The vessels Japanese fishing boats off Chōshi in Shimōsa Province; the series shows fishing of many kinds, from shellfish gathering to whaling.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Image: Katsushika Hokusai, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Shichiri no watashi ferry boats Unnamed
Kuwana: the Seven Ri Ferry at the Port (Kuwana, Shichiri watashiguchi), from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō (Hōeidō edition), 1833 to 1834
Artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 to 1858)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP1491)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
Travellers on the Tōkaidō could not bridge the three great rivers near Kuwana, because the shogunate forbade bridges that might help an army march on Edo. Instead many took the Shichiri no watashi, a boat ride of about 28 kilometres across Ise Bay, and Hiroshige shows the big ferry boats in front of Kuwana Castle, one with her great white sail half set, while other ships sail away in the background. The ferry is the whole reason this station exists in the picture: the road, for a day, becomes the sea.
The vessels The Shichiri no watashi linked the post stations of Miya and Kuwana across Ise Bay; travellers wary of the sea could take a longer river route by way of Saya.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Boat carrying Nichiren into exile Myth and legend
Nichiren Calming the Waves at Kakuda on his Way to Exile on Sado (Sashū ryūkei Kakuda nami daimoku), from the series Illustrated Abridged Biography of the Founder (Kōso go ichidai ryakuzu), 1833 to 1837
Artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 to 1861)
Where to see it Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-P-1956-717)
Medium Colour woodblock print
In September 1271 the monk Nichiren was arrested, and he was later exiled to the island of Sado. Kuniyoshi's series on the life of the founder of the Lotus school gives the crossing its most dramatic moment: Nichiren stands in red robes, rosary in hand, in a crowded boat, calming the high waves, and the sacred words of his chant appear written on the water. Everyone else in the boat cowers; he alone is upright. Kuniyoshi turns a small coastal boat into the stage for a miracle, and the heaving sea into a page of scripture.
The legend An ordinary Japanese coastal boat of the thirteenth century as imagined by an Edo artist; the calming of the waves belongs to Nichiren's legend.
Sources Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Image: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Drawing
Three-masted junk at Macau Unnamed
A Chinese Junk, Macau, 1835
Artist George Chinnery (1774 to 1852)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (E.1634-1928)
Medium Pen and ink on paper
Chinnery left India for the China coast in 1825 to escape his creditors and made his home in Macau, where, he claimed, he went out every morning to sketch before breakfast. This sheet comes from an album of ninety-three drawings made from nature in and around Macau. A three-masted junk lies with her sails lowered but pennants still flying at the stern, figures move about on board, and other craft lie near the shore. Among the figures are the Tanka boatwomen who ferried Westerners in their small boats. In his Gurney shorthand he noted that the drawing was correct on 30 September 1835.
“correct September 30th 1835”
The vessels An unnamed three-masted Chinese junk at Macau, drawn with her sails lowered; the V&A records that the sheet comes from an album of ninety-three sketches made in Macau and its vicinity.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Christopher Hilton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Japan, China and the East · Print
Fishing boats of Tsukudajima Unnamed
Fishing Boats off Tsukudajima from Eitai Bridge (Eitaibashi Tsukudajima ryōsen), from the series Famous Places in the Eastern Capital, c. 1835
Artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 to 1858)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP628)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
From the long wooden Eitai bridge, crowded with travellers and a palanquin, Hiroshige looks out over the water to Tsukudajima and its fishing fleet: a cluster of boats at anchor, their bare masts standing in a row like a fence against the pale sky, and small craft sculling across the blue water below. The boats are a quiet presence, the fishing village's livelihood lined up at the edge of the city, while the traffic of the bridge hurries past above them.
The vessels Unnamed fishing boats moored off Tsukuda Island in Edo, as the print's title records.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Qing trading junks arriving at Nagasaki Unnamed
Chinese Ships at Nagasaki, c. 1840
Artist Unidentified Japanese artist; published by Bunsaidō
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012.35)
Medium Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and colour on paper; horizontal nagaban
Two Chinese ships approach Nagasaki. On the nearer one the crew hurry to lower a sail as a small boat comes out with a party of returning traders, and an inscription at the upper left names them trading ships of Qing China and records their mission. The long, narrow sheet carries the red seal of its publisher, Bunsaidō. Nagasaki was the only port foreigners were allowed to visit in the Edo period, and prints like this, sold to merchants and to curious Japanese buyers, made the bannered junks among their most exotic subjects.
The vessels Chinese junks from Qing ports traded at Nagasaki throughout the period of seclusion, alongside the Dutch at Dejima.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Japan, China and the East · Print
Minamoto no Yoshitsune's ship Myth and legend
The Vengeful Ghosts of the Taira Clan Appear at Daimotsu Bay in Settsu Province (Sesshū Daimotsu no ura Heike onryō arawaruru zu), 1840s to 1850s
Artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 to 1861)
Where to see it British Museum, London (1906,1220,0.1337)
Medium Colour woodblock print, triptych
After the Minamoto destroyed the Taira at Dan-no-ura, the drowned clan's ghosts were said to rise from the sea at Daimotsu Bay. Kuniyoshi spreads the scene across three sheets: Yoshitsune and the warrior monk Benkei are in their warship while the ghosts, led by Taira no Tomomori, rise out of the dark sea towards them. The ship, crowded with armoured men and crested banners, is the last solid thing in a world dissolving into spirits and spray. Here a warship carries the whole weight of a favourite ghost story.
The legend The vessel is legendary, from the story of Yoshitsune's flight by sea after the Genpei war of 1180 to 1185; the kabuki play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura sets a scene near Daimotsu Bay, where Yoshitsune's party waits for a boat.
Sources British Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Ferry boats crossing to Arai Unnamed
Arai (Arai, kaijō ichiri han funewatashi no zu), from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, c. 1842
Artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 to 1858)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP568)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
At Arai the Tōkaidō crossed the mouth of Lake Hamana by water, from Maisaka, and the checkpoint here was the only one on the road that stood both on land and on water. The inscription on this print names the crossing: one and a half ri over the sea by boat. Hiroshige fills the sheet with the ferries themselves, a fleet of boats under white sails spread across the blue water, passengers seated amidships, the far shore low and green. For an hour between two post stations, the highway becomes a regatta.
The vessels Ferry boats carried travellers across the lake between Maisaka-juku and Arai-juku; the Arai checkpoint, moved to its present site after the earthquake of 1707, controlled travellers on land and on the water.
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Junks, sampans and a steamer before the Canton factories Unnamed
Canton Waterfront (The Hongs at Canton), 1847 to 1856
Artist Unidentified artist
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (56.212)
Medium Oil on canvas
This view looks across the Pearl River at the row of foreign factories at Canton, the hongs, the principal and only legal site of most Western trade with China from 1757 to 1842, their national flags flying above the colonnades. The river in front tells the story of the port: a big junk with a ribbed mat sail, crowded sampans and cargo boats, and, right in the middle, a small steamer with twin funnels, the new technology gliding past the old. The Met dates the picture to 1847 to 1856, and the waterfront it shows was destroyed by fire in 1856.
The vessels The Thirteen Factories stood on the Pearl River at Canton from about 1684 to 1856 and were destroyed by fire in 1822, in 1841 and finally in 1856; the river before them was crowded with junks and sampans and, by the time of this picture, steamers.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Keying Named ship
The Chinese Junk Keying, Captain Kellett, as she appeared in New York Harbour, July 13th, 1847, 212 days from Canton, 720 tons burthen, 1847
Artist Nathaniel Currier (1813 to 1888)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.99); another impression at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (PAF7737)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
When Keying moored off the Battery in July 1847 she was the first ship from China to visit New York, and some seven thousand people went aboard her every day. Currier, the New York lithographer, published this portrait with the facts of the voyage in the title, as if the numbers themselves were part of the marvel. The junk sits high and strange, her painted hull and tall masts unlike anything built on the Hudson. Western artists often exaggerated her unfamiliar lines, but the Currier print, as Keying's historians note, does not, and that makes it one of the more trustworthy records of her.
The real ship Keying was bought secretly in Hong Kong in August 1846 by British businessmen, against a Chinese law forbidding the sale of junks to foreigners, and sailed in December 1846 under Captain Charles Kellett with a British and Cantonese crew. She reached New York in July 1847, Boston that November and the Thames in March 1848, where Queen Victoria visited her; she was later broken up on the Mersey in 1853.
Sources The Met · Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Nathaniel Currier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Keying Named ship
The Chinese Junk Keying, Captain Kellet. The first junk that ever rounded the Cape of Good Hope, or appeared in British waters. As she appeared off Gravesend 28th March, 1848, 477 days from Canton, 1848 (published 20 May 1848)
Artist Rock Brothers and Payne (publishers)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAF7738)
Medium Hand-coloured aquatint
Keying's arrival in the Thames in March 1848 was treated as an event, and the long title of this London print reads like the inscription on the medal struck in her honour: the first junk ever to round the Cape of Good Hope or appear in British waters. The Illustrated London News praised her sea-keeping as equal to British ships, and at Blackwall crowds paid a shilling to step, as The Times put it, from the Thames into the vicinity of Canton. The print catches her off Gravesend at the end of a voyage of 477 days from Canton, an unmistakably Chinese silhouette in the grey water of the Thames estuary.
“There is not a more interesting Exhibition in the vicinity of London than the Chinese Junk”
The real ship Built of teak in the Fuzhou style and bought in Hong Kong in 1846, Keying sailed by the Cape and St Helena to New York, Boston and London, where she lay on exhibition at Blackwall. Sold in 1853 and towed to the Mersey, she was dismantled there, and by 1855 her remains lay rotting at Tranmere.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Rock Brothers and Payne, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Minamoto no Tametomo's storm-wrecked ship Myth and legend
Retired Emperor Sanuki Sends Allies to Rescue Tametomo (Sanuki no in kenzoku o shite Tametomo o sukuu zu), 1848 to 1852
Artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 to 1861)
Where to see it British Museum, London (1906,1220,0.1339)
Medium Colour woodblock print, triptych
Kuniyoshi took this scene from Kyokutei Bakin's novel of Tametomo and from Hokusai's illustrations to it. The archer Tametomo and his party, fleeing by sea, are overcome by a storm: his wife gives herself to the waves to calm them, the retainer Kihei rescues the hero's child on the back of a huge shark, and tengu, followers of the dead Emperor Sutoku, stop Tametomo from taking his own life. The storm-struck ship is the stage for all of it as the supernatural pours in. The British Museum sees it as an example of Kuniyoshi's heroic style.
The legend A fictional vessel from Bakin's novel Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki about Minamoto no Tametomo (1139 to 1170), the samurai of the Hōgen Rebellion; the scene is legend, not record.
Sources British Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Chinese trading junk Unnamed
Chinese Junks, 1850
Artist Attributed to George Chinnery (1774 to 1852)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC1180)
Medium Oil on canvas on board
The National Maritime Museum describes this as a painting of a Chinese junk off a mountainous coast shown for its own sake, with no reference to any historic event, a subject that fascinated European audiences in the nineteenth century. The attribution to Chinnery is not confirmed by documents, but the English painter spent most of his life in Asia and was based at Macau from 1825 until his death in 1852, making regular visits to Canton until 1832. The painted junk, sails full of wind, carries all of that long residence on the China coast in one proud hull.
“This painting of a Chinese junk off a mountainous coastline displays the vessel for its own sake without any reference to an historic event.”
The vessels Junks with battened lug sails, high sterns and hanging rudders carried the coastal and overseas trade of southern China; the ship shown is unidentified.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Attributed to George Chinnery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Western paddle steamer off Uraga Unnamed
Complete Picture of a Steamship off Kanazawa (Jōkisen zenzu), 19th century
Artist Utagawa Sadahide (1807 to c. 1879)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2007.49.299a to c)
Medium Triptych of woodblock prints; ink and colour on paper
Sadahide was best known for his Yokohama prints of the 1860s, a time when he was a best-selling artist and curiosity about foreigners and their machines was at its height. Across three sheets he lays out a steamship in full profile, paddle wheel churning, two funnels pouring smoke, masts rigged fore and aft and passengers along the rail, with Mount Fuji on the horizon and the heading Seascape off Uraga, the anchorage where Perry's squadron had arrived in 1853. It is part technical diagram and part wonder, the new kind of ship explained to people who had watched it come.
The vessels The vessel is a generic Western side-wheel steamer of the kind that visited Japanese waters after the opening of the ports; no name is given.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Dutch ships at Nagasaki Unnamed
Dutch Ships (Orandasen), c. 1850
Artist Anonymous Japanese print designer
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (LCCN 2002700129)
Medium Colour woodcut on hōsho paper
Nagasaki was the only port foreigners were allowed to visit between 1641 and 1859, and prints made there, mostly by anonymous designers, showed the Dutch and Chinese who came and the ships that brought them. They were sold to merchants who travelled to Japan on business and to Japanese buyers curious about foreigners they could not meet themselves. This sheet shows two Dutch ships under the Dutch flag: one under full sail in the distance, the other seen from astern with her guns firing in round white clouds of smoke. It is the foreign ship as the port of Nagasaki saw it.
The vessels Nagasaki was the only Japanese port open to foreigners between 1641 and 1859, and Dutch ships called there to trade; the print shows two three-masted Dutch ships.
Sources Library of Congress · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Japan, China and the East · Print
First cutter of USS Mississippi Named ship
Passing the Rubicon: Lieutenant S. Bent in the Mississippi's First Cutter Forcing his Way through a Fleet of Japanese Boats while Surveying the Bay of Yedo, July 11th, 1853
Artist After Wilhelm Heine (1827 to 1885)
Where to see it Brown University Library, Providence
Medium Colour lithograph with hand-colouring on paper
Wilhelm Heine was chosen from scores of applicants as official artist to Perry's expedition and served aboard the flagship USS Mississippi, and his sketches became the pictorial record of the opening of Japan. Here the drama is small and precise: a single American cutter, sent to survey the bay of Edo on 11 July 1853, pushes through a crowd of Japanese guard boats. The title borrows Caesar's point of no return. It is a picture about trespass as much as courage, a ship's boat crossing a line that Japan had held for two centuries.
The real ship USS Mississippi, a side-wheel steam frigate commissioned in 1841 and built under Perry's own supervision, was one of the four ships of his squadron at Uraga in July 1853; her first cutter was the ship's boat sent to survey the bay.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: After Wilhelm Heine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
USS Powhatan and the ships of Perry's squadron Named ship
The Mission of Commodore Perry to Japan in 1854 (the Black Ship Scroll), 1854 to 1858
Artist Attributed to Hibata Ōsuke and Takagawa Bunsen (preparatory sketches); preface calligraphy by Ōnuma Chinzan
Where to see it British Museum, London (2013,3002.1)
Medium Handscroll; ink, colour, gold and silver pigment on paper
This fifteen-metre scroll is, in the British Museum's words, one of the most complete and finely executed pictorial records from the Japanese side of Perry's second visit in 1854. Its sketches were made by eyewitnesses: troop formations, the Americans landing at Yokohama in 27 barges, a banquet, a funeral procession, sumo wrestlers, and nine detailed studies of the American ships with Japanese boats around them. Seen through Japanese eyes the kurofune are machines to be measured and understood, and the careful drawing is itself a kind of answer to the threat they carried.
“one of the most complete and finely executed pictorial records from the Japanese side”
The real ship Perry's squadron of July 1853 was Susquehanna, Mississippi, Plymouth and Saratoga. USS Powhatan, a side-wheel steam frigate, entered Edo Bay with the squadron on 14 February 1854 and remained until the Convention of Kanagawa was signed on 31 March 1854; a banquet for the Japanese negotiators was held aboard her.
Sources British Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Attributed to Hibata Ōsuke and Takagawa Bunsen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Perry's squadron and landing boats at Kurihama Named ship
First Landing of Americans in Japan, 1855
Artist Eliphalet M. Brown Jr. after Wilhelm Heine (1827 to 1885)
Where to see it National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington (NPG.78.83)
Medium Colour lithograph with hand-colouring on paper
Perry had ignored Japanese requests that he move on to Nagasaki and threatened to attack Edo, and it was finally agreed that he could land nearby at Kurihama to deliver his letter. Heine, the official artist of the expedition, recorded the scene. Ship's boats lie along the beach under their flags, American sailors and marines stand in long ranks on the sand, and Japanese officials and troops with banners and horses look on. Far out in the bay lie the ships themselves. They sit small on the horizon, yet everything on the shore happens because of them.
The real ship Perry's squadron of July 1853 was four US Navy warships, Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga and Susquehanna. Japanese had long called Western vessels kurofune, black ships, and the name stuck to Perry's squadron, whose coal-fired engines belched black smoke.
Sources Smithsonian · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Eliphalet M. Brown Jr. after Wilhelm Heine, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Log raft on the Sumida river Unnamed
Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake (Ōhashi Atake no yūdachi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1857
Artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 to 1858)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP643)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
Published in the ninth month of 1857, this is one of Hiroshige's best-known prints. People scurry across the wooden Shin Ōhashi bridge under hats and straw capes while a lone boatman punts a log raft towards the Fukagawa timber yards, steady at his pole in the downpour. Hiroshige called it white rain, cut as fine dark lines in two directions. The far bank is Atake, named after the government ship Atakemaru once moored there. Van Gogh copied the print in oils, and the raftsman crossed to Europe with it.
The vessels A log raft punted by one man towards the timber yards of Fukagawa on the Sumida. The district of Atake on the far bank took its name from the Atakemaru, a government ship formerly moored there.
Image: Utagawa Hiroshige, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Pleasure boats (yakatabune) on the Sumida Unnamed
Fireworks at Ryōgoku Bridge (Ryōgoku hanabi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1858
Artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 to 1858)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP642)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
Hiroshige paints a fireworks night on the Sumida from above: a rocket climbs in a thin red line and bursts into sparks over a dark sky, the long Ryōgoku bridge crosses the river, and the water below is dotted with boats, one pleasure barge glowing with lanterns among dozens of small craft. The boats are the audience. Yakatabune, the roofed pleasure boats of Edo with tatami mats and low tables inside, were basically for entertaining guests, and this print is their portrait on a summer night.
The vessels Yakatabune, privately owned pleasure boats whose name means home-style boat, have been used since the Heian period; the shoguns' own were lavishly decorated, and they still ply Tokyo's rivers with red lanterns along the cabin.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Haneda ferry boat Unnamed
Haneda Ferry and Benten Shrine (Haneda no watashi Benten no yashiro), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1858
Artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 to 1858)
Where to see it Los Angeles County Museum of Art (AC1995.62.1)
Medium Colour woodblock print
Hiroshige puts us in the ferry itself. All we see of the boatman are his bare, muscular legs and arms, gripping the long sculling oar, its rope cutting down through the frame, and between his limbs opens the view: the shore, the lantern and shrine of Benten at Haneda, reeds, and a few sails on a pink horizon. It is one of the boldest compositions of the late series, number 72, and the ferry is not described at all, only felt, through the effort of the man driving it. The viewer becomes the passenger.
The vessels The Haneda ferry was a small boat driven by a single sculling oar; the print shows it from the passenger's place, looking towards the Benten shrine.
Sources collections.lacma.org · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Utagawa Hiroshige, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
Chinese junk (tōsen) at Nagasaki Unnamed
Dutch and Chinese Ships in the Harbor at Nagasaki in Hizen Province (Hizen Nagasaki tōsen no tsu), from the series One Hundred Views of Famous Places in the Provinces, 1859 (3rd month)
Artist Utagawa Hiroshige II (1826 to 1869)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2007.49.136)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
From 1641 until 1859 Nagasaki was the only port in Japan that foreigners were allowed to visit, and the Chinese who came there were as much a part of its life as the Dutch. Hiroshige II, the pupil who inherited his master's name after his death in 1858, fills the tall sheet with the stern of a Chinese junk: painted panels, a great bird on the transom, red banners streaming from the masts. The small Japanese boat on the water beside her gives the scale. Published in the third month of 1859, it shows the old licensed trade in all its colour.
The vessels Chinese trading junks sailed to Nagasaki throughout the period when it was the only port open to foreigners, between 1641 and 1859; the junk shown is not named.
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Kanrin Maru Named ship
The Kanrin Maru Sailing through a Gale (Kanrin Maru reppū kōkō no zu), c. 1860
Artist Suzufuji Yūjirō (1826 to 1868)
Source Reproduced in Man'en gannen kenbei shisetsu zuroku, National Diet Library, Tokyo
In February 1860 the Kanrin Maru left Uraga for San Francisco, carrying Katsu Kaishū, Fukuzawa Yukichi, John Manjirō and ninety-six Japanese sailors, with the American officer John M. Brooke, as part of Japan's first embassy to the United States. Suzufuji Yūjirō was one of her officers, appointed to handle the ship, and he painted her as he had lived her: heeled hard over in heavy seas, rigging straining, the rising sun flag at her stern. It is a sailor's picture of a ship in trouble, and a record of Japan showing it could master Western seamanship.
The real ship Kanrin Maru was built by Fop Smit at Kinderdijk in the Netherlands and delivered in 1857, Japan's first sail and screw-driven steam corvette. After the 1860 voyage to San Francisco she went to the Bonin Islands in 1861, was captured by imperial forces in Shimizu harbour in the Boshin War, and was lost off Cape Saraki in Hokkaido in 1871.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (JA)
Image: Suzufuji Yūjirō, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Painting
Kanrin Maru and an American whaler Named ship
The Kanrin Maru Meets an American Whaling Ship, from Ogasawara Island Scenery (Ogasawara-tō shinkei zu), c. 1861
Artist Miyamoto Gendō (born 1824)
Where to see it National Diet Library, Tokyo
Medium Painting in an illustrated book
In January 1861 the Kanrin Maru was sent to the Bonin Islands, known in Japan as Ogasawara, as flagship of the shogunate's mission to claim them, at a time when Britain had claimed the islands and the United States had considered them for a naval base. These pictures of Ogasawara Island scenery record the voyage. Its inscription notes that on the tenth day of the third month, on the way home, the Kanrin Maru met an American whaling ship. Gendō paints both under full sail on a blue sea, the Japanese flag at one stern and the Stars and Stripes at the other, with a whaleboat rowing between them.
The real ship Kanrin Maru, a screw steam corvette built at Kinderdijk in the Netherlands and delivered in 1857, served as flagship of the 1861 Bonin Islands expedition and met an American whaler on the voyage home.
Sources dl.ndl.go.jp · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Japan, China and the East · Print
American merchant ship loading at Yokohama Unnamed
Yokohama Trade: Westerners Loading Cargo (Yokohama kōeki seiyōjin nimotsu unsō no zu), 1861
Artist Utagawa Sadahide (1807 to c. 1879)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2007.49.127a to e)
Medium Pentaptych of woodblock prints; ink and colour on paper
Yokohama opened to foreign trade in 1859, and within two years Sadahide was showing the public exactly what went on there. This five-sheet print climbs aboard an American merchant ship flying the Stars and Stripes: sailors swarm up the ratlines, bales and crates are carried up a gangway, and Western men and women watch from the deck. Utagawa artists produced more than 800 Yokohama prints for a public curious about these strangers, and this is one of the most crowded and alive, the ship as a whole foreign world in miniature.
The vessels The ship is an unidentified American merchant vessel of the early Yokohama trade that followed the opening of the port in 1859.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Chinese junk Unnamed
Chinese Junk (Tōsen no zu), 1862
Artist Utagawa Yoshitora (active c. 1850 to 1880)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2007.49.209)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
Yoshitora, the oldest pupil of Kuniyoshi, produced many prints of foreigners in the years after Japan was opened to trade, though he may never have seen the scenes he drew. Here a single Chinese junk fills a tall sheet: battened mat sails, a dragon pennant, red and white banners, a painted hull, with a long text above and a roundel portrait of a Chinese official in the corner. Part ship portrait and part encyclopedia page, it answers the curiosity of a public just beginning to see the wider world.
The vessels A Chinese trading junk; by 1862 Japanese printmakers were depicting such ships alongside Western vessels for a public eager for foreign subjects.
Image: Utagawa Yoshitora, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Drawing
Kaiyō Maru, Kaiten Maru, Banryū Maru, Chiyodagata, Shinsoku Maru, Mikaho Maru, Kanrin Maru and Chōgei Maru Named ship
Eight Tokugawa Warships Setting Sail off Shinagawa, Autumn 1868 (Boshin chūshū Tokugawa gunkan hasseki Shinagawa oki kaihan no zu), 1868
Artist Kosugi Masanoshin (1843 to 1909)
Medium Drawing
In the autumn of 1868, as the shogunate collapsed, Enomoto Takeaki led its last fleet of eight ships out of Edo, setting sail from Shinagawa for the north. Kosugi Masanoshin, chief engineer of the flagship Kaiyō Maru, drew the fleet as it left: tall-masted steamers and sailing ships side by side, smoke rising from their funnels. Kanrin Maru appears among them as a barque with no funnel. On the way north the fleet met a typhoon, and Kanrin Maru, forced into Shimizu harbour, was captured there by imperial forces. It is a portrait of a navy setting out on its last voyage, drawn by a man who sailed with it.
The real ship Kanrin Maru, Japan's first screw steam corvette, was built at Kinderdijk in the Netherlands and delivered in 1857. She was one of Enomoto's eight ships; after the typhoon she took refuge at Shimizu, where imperial forces bombarded and boarded her despite a white flag and killed her crew.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Kosugi Masanoshin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Japan, China and the East · Print
American full-rigged ship off Arai Unnamed
An American Sailing Ship off Arai, from the series Pictures and Poems of the Fifty-three Stations (Shoga gojūsan eki), 1872
Artist Utagawa Yoshimori (1830 to 1884)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2007.49.243)
Medium Woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
In the 1830s Hiroshige had shown the station of Arai on the Tōkaidō as a crossing of Lake Hamana, a daimyō and his baggage carried over by boat. In October 1872, four years into the Meiji era, Yoshimori drew Arai for a new series of pictures and poems of the fifty-three stations and put an American ship there instead: a full-rigged merchantman driving through the open sea under a cloud of sail, the Stars and Stripes at her stern and masthead. A poem in Chinese style above the picture ends with the Pacific. The old road now looked out to the ocean and to the ships that came across it.
The vessels An unidentified American square-rigged sailing ship of the kind that traded with Japan after the ports were opened; the print shows her with three masts and all plain sail set.
Japan, China and the East · Print
Paddle steamer off Miho Unnamed
Fuji with Boat at Miho in Sunshū (Shizuoka), 1878
Artist Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847 to 1915)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (JP3336)
Medium Triptych of woodblock prints; ink and colour on paper
Kiyochika recorded the rapid modernisation of Meiji Japan and brought to the woodblock print a sense of light and shade inspired by Western art. In this triptych of October 1878 a big paddle steamer ploughs through heavy, white-crested seas off Miho, the Japanese flag at her stern, while a full moon hangs over a distant sailing ship on one side and a rose tinted Fuji rises on the other. The old sacred mountain and the new steamship share the same stormy sea.
The vessels An unnamed Western-style paddle steamer with auxiliary masts flying the Japanese flag, of the kind that carried the new shipping of early Meiji Japan.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Myth, faith and allegory · Vase
The ship of Dionysus Myth and legend
The Dionysus Cup (Kylix with Dionysus sailing), c. 540 to 530 BC
Artist Exekias (active c. 545 to 530 BC)
Where to see it Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich (2044)
Medium Black-figure pottery (kylix)
Inside a drinking cup, Exekias painted a ship that fills almost the whole round. The god Dionysus, long-haired and bearded and crowned with ivy, reclines aboard as his vessel sails under a white sail; from the mast grows a vine heavy with seven clusters of grapes, and dolphins swim all around the hull. The most common reading links it to the Homeric Hymn in which Etruscan pirates seized the god, who confused their minds so that they leapt into the sea and became dolphins. The cup was found at Vulci and acquired for Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1841.
The legend A mythical vessel of the god Dionysus, drawn as a Greek sailing ship of the sixth century BC with an animal-head prow, a steering oar and a single white sail.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Exekias; photo ArchaiOptix, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Vase
The ship of Odysseus Myth and legend
Odysseus and the Sirens, red-figure stamnos (the Siren Vase), c. 480 to 470 BC
Artist The Siren Painter (active c. 480 to 470 BC)
Where to see it British Museum, London (1843,1103.31)
Medium Red-figure pottery (stamnos)
This is the vase that gave the Siren Painter his name, and one of the finest ships in Greek art. Odysseus is tied to the mast so that he can hear the Sirens and live, while his rowers pull at their oars and the steersman stands at the stern with the steering oar. The sail is brailed up along the yard and a great eye is painted on the bow. Two Sirens, birds with women's heads, perch on the cliffs on either side, and a third plunges headlong towards the ship.
The legend A mythical vessel from Homer's Odyssey, Book XII, drawn as a Greek oared ship of the early fifth century BC with a single mast, a brailed square sail, a painted eye at the bow and a steering oar at the stern.
Sources British Museum · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: The Siren Painter, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship saved by Saint Nicholas Myth and legend
Saint Nicholas Saving a Ship from the Tempest (Quaratesi Polyptych predella), 1425
Artist Gentile da Fabriano (c. 1370 to 1427)
Where to see it Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City
Medium Painting on panel
In the legend a ship caught by a storm far out at sea is saved when Saint Nicholas appears to the sailors. Gentile shows the tempest only in the sails torn by the wind; sea and sky are calm, while on board the crew are frantic, lightening the ship by throwing the cargo overboard or praying to the saint, who swoops down from the sky in a blaze of gold. Here, in a small predella panel for the Quaratesi family's chapel in Florence, he lavishes attention on real rigging, ropes, rope ladders, the anchor and the ship's boat, and adds a mermaid and a starfish in the green sea.
The legend A legendary vessel from the miracles of Saint Nicholas of Myra, patron saint of sailors; Gentile painted it as a merchant ship of his own day.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (IT) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Gentile da Fabriano, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The apostles' fishing boat on Lake Geneva Myth and legend
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (La Pêche miraculeuse), 1444
Artist Konrad Witz (c. 1400 to c. 1446)
Where to see it Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva (1843-0011)
Medium Painting on fir panel
Witz set the Gospel on his own shore. The mountains behind are real: the Voirons, the Môle, the Salève and the snows of Mont Blanc, with the houses on piles of Geneva along the water. It is often called the first topographical landscape in European painting. In the boat the apostles haul in their net while Peter has thrown himself into the lake to reach Christ, who stands on the water in a red cloak; Peter's legs bend under the surface, the first painted refraction. The altarpiece it belonged to was probably partly destroyed in the iconoclasm of 1535 at Geneva cathedral, but this wing survived.
The legend The fishing boat of the apostles, painted as a small open boat of the fishermen of Lake Geneva in the fifteenth century.
Sources Wikipedia (FR)
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's ships Myth and legend
The Return of Ulysses (cassone panel), c. 1475
Artist Sienese artist close to Liberale da Verona
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (5792-1860)
Medium Tempera on poplar panel
Painted for a cassone, the kind of wedding chest a bride used to store her trousseau, this panel tells the story of Ulysses and Penelope. Penelope weaves in a castle on the left, faithful through twenty years; in the centre a man boards a ship with his horse, and beyond a walled city three ships sail towards it in the distance, the husband's ship at last arriving. Penelope, the model of faithfulness, was often chosen for furniture made for a wedding, and the ships carry the promise of the marriage chest: however long the voyage, the husband comes home.
The legend Mythical vessels from Homer's Odyssey, painted as the sailing ships of fifteenth-century Italy.
Sources V&A · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Sienese artist close to Liberale da Verona, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ursula's pilgrim ships Myth and legend
Shrine of Saint Ursula (Ursulaschrijn), c. 1489
Artist Hans Memling (c. 1430 to 1494)
Where to see it Memling Museum, Old Saint John's Hospital (Sint-Janshospitaal), Bruges
Medium Oil on panel, in a carved and gilded wooden reliquary
Made to hold relics of Saint Ursula, which were solemnly placed in it on 21 October 1489, Memling's shrine is a little carved and gilded Gothic chapel, and along its sides six small arched scenes tell her story in the manner of stained glass windows. The pilgrims arrive at Cologne, with its unfinished cathedral, at Basel and at Rome, leave Basel on the way home, and meet their martyrdom. In the first scene their ship lies at the Cologne quay, its crew unloading as Ursula and her maidens step ashore. The backgrounds are northern cities painted with close attention to the life of Memling's own day.
The legend Legendary vessels of Ursula's pilgrimage, painted as the ships of the Rhine and the Low Countries in Memling's time.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The pilgrims' ships at Cologne Myth and legend
Arrival of the Pilgrims in Cologne (Legend of Saint Ursula), c. 1490
Artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460 to c. 1525)
Where to see it Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (Cat. 579)
Medium Painting on canvas
The first canvas Carpaccio painted for the Scuola di Sant'Orsola shows Ursula and her companions, with the Pope, arriving at Cologne, which the Huns are besieging. Their tall ships lie moored in the river beneath the city walls, a small boat alongside, while armoured soldiers wait on the bank. Over the tower fly red and white banners with three golden crowns, those of the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II, Venice's great enemy in Carpaccio's day, so that the ancient legend reads as a warning from the painter's own world. The ships that have carried the pilgrims safely to the city are about to deliver them to their martyrdom.
The legend Legendary vessels of Ursula's pilgrimage; according to the Golden Legend she and her companions were martyred at Cologne on the way home from Rome.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Vittore Carpaccio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Ship of Fools Myth and legend
The Ship of Fools, c. 1490 to 1500
Artist Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 to 1516)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris
Medium Oil on panel
Ten figures crowd a little boat: a Franciscan friar and a nun with a lute sing open-mouthed as they try to bite a pancake hanging on a string, one rower uses a giant ladle for an oar, and a fool perched on a branch drinks apart. The mast is a greasy pole crowned with a bouquet, a roast bird tied to it, and a long pink pennant bearing a crescent moon flies from the top. The panel is a fragment of a wing of a dismembered triptych whose other wing is Death and the Miser in Washington. The boat has no sail and no one steering; the company is going nowhere and does not care.
The legend An allegorical vessel. The ship of fools is a trope going back to Book VI of Plato's Republic, popularised by Sebastian Brant's satire Das Narrenschiff, published in Basel in 1494.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Hieronymus Bosch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The pilgrims' fleet Myth and legend
The Meeting of the Betrothed Couple and the Departure of the Pilgrims (Legend of Saint Ursula), 1495
Artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460 to c. 1525)
Where to see it Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (Cat. 575)
Medium Painting on canvas
This canvas of Carpaccio's Ursula cycle is divided in two by a banner pole. On the left the English prince takes leave of his father among castles and steep cliffs; on the right he meets his bride and she parts from her own father, while in the background the pilgrimage sets out from a harbour city of Renaissance and Venetian buildings. The cycle was commissioned by the Loredan family, and Antonio Loredan sits on the parapet beside the pole. Behind the lovers the harbour is full of ships: one lies heeled over on her side at the quay, others ride at anchor, the fleet that will carry the pilgrims away.
The legend The fleet is legendary, from the Golden Legend's story of Ursula's pilgrimage; Carpaccio painted the ships of his own day in a harbour of imaginary Venetian-style buildings.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Vittore Carpaccio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Galleon Myth and legend
The Arrival of the English Ambassadors (Legend of Saint Ursula), 1497 to 1498
Artist Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460 to 1465, died c. 1525 to 1526)
Where to see it Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice
Medium Painting on canvas
Though it opens Carpaccio's Ursula cycle, this canvas was among the last to be painted, in 1497 to 1498. It is read from right to left like a scene from the liturgical drama of the day: Ursula and her father talk, then the king receives the ambassadors who have come to ask her hand for a pagan prince. On the left, in the foreground under a loggia, the view opens onto a marine panorama with a galleon, the sea that will carry the story onward. Members of the Compagnia della Calza, who staged Venice's festivals, watch among the spectators.
The legend A legendary vessel of the Ursula story, painted as a galleon of Carpaccio's Venice.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice, where the original is kept. Photo: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Print
The Ship of Fools Myth and legend
Ship of Fools (woodcut for Sebastian Brant's Stultifera Navis), after 1497
Artist Albrecht Dürer (1471 to 1528)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1998.342)
Medium Woodcut
Sebastian Brant's Ship of Fools, published in Basel in 1494, filled a ship with fools to lash the weaknesses and vices of his time, and it became extremely popular at once. Of its 103 woodcuts, two thirds are attributed to the young Dürer. This sheet comes from the Latin edition, Stultifera Navis, translated by Jakob Locher in 1497. The ship is the whole joke and the whole sermon: a vessel bound for Narragonia, the land of fools, with all of humanity aboard.
The legend An allegorical vessel from Brant's satire, bound for the imaginary land of Narragonia and crewed by fools.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Noah's Ark Myth and legend
The Deluge (Diluvio universale), Sistine Chapel ceiling, c. 1508 to 1510
Artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 to 1564)
Where to see it Sistine Chapel, Apostolic Palace, Vatican City
Medium Fresco
According to Condivi, this was the first scene Michelangelo painted on the Sistine ceiling. Some sixty figures flee the rising water, carrying children and belongings, climbing trees, and dragging the exhausted to a last rock. In the centre a small boat is about to founder as those aboard fight to keep others off, and another group attacks the ark with a ladder and an axe. The ark itself rides untroubled, like a citadel on the waters, with the dove already come down and Noah looking out. In the chapel's scheme it stands for the Church, made of wood like the Cross, a vessel of salvation.
The legend The vessel of the Genesis flood narrative (Genesis 6 to 8), built by Noah to save his family and the animals.
Sources Wikipedia (IT) · Wikipedia
Image: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship of Odysseus Myth and legend
Penelope with the Suitors, c. 1509
Artist Pintoricchio (1454 to 1513)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG911)
Medium Fresco, transferred to canvas
Penelope sits at her loom, besieged by suitors, while in the distance behind her the Odyssey goes on. There is Odysseus's ship, decorated with the blue and gold arms of Pandolfo Petrucci, ruler of Siena, who commissioned the frescoes to celebrate his son's marriage. Odysseus is strapped to the mast so that he can hear the Sirens, the mermaids in the water, and sailors from a small boat nearby dive in, maddened by their song. On the coast he meets Circe among her pigs. The little ship carries the hero home, and flatters a patron who, like Odysseus, had known exile and homecoming.
The legend A mythical vessel from Homer's Odyssey, painted as a Renaissance ship decorated with the coat of arms of the Petrucci family.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Charon's boat Myth and legend
Landscape with Charon Crossing the Styx, c. 1515 to 1524
Artist Joachim Patinir (c. 1480 to 1524)
Where to see it Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Medium Oil on panel
The Styx runs down the middle of Patinir's world landscape, and on it Charon's boat carries a single small soul between two destinies. To the left lie Paradise, a luminous fountain and angels on the grassy hills; to the right, Hell, with Cerberus at its gate and fires blazing in the hills. The soul in the boat looks towards Hell, ignoring the angel on the bank who beckons him to the harder path to Heaven. Patinir set the ferryman of Virgil and Dante within the Christian traditions of the Last Judgement and the art of dying well, and made the boat the hinge of the whole choice.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ferry in which Charon rows the souls of the dead across the Styx, described in Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Inferno.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Joachim Patinir, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Drawing
Peter's fishing boats Myth and legend
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (Raphael Cartoon), c. 1515 to 1516
Artist Raphael (1483 to 1520)
Where to see it Royal Collection, on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (ROYAL LOANS.2)
Medium Bodycolour (glue tempera) on paper mounted on canvas
Pope Leo X commissioned Raphael to design tapestries for the Sistine Chapel showing the lives of Saints Peter and Paul, seen as the founders of the Church. In this cartoon Christ has told Peter to cast his net, and the catch is so great that the two small boats sit low in the water, heaped with fish, while fishermen haul in the net. Peter kneels before Christ to acknowledge him and confess his own sinfulness. Raphael even shows the figures reflected in the still lake, with cranes on the shore. The story looks forward to Peter as a fisher of men.
The legend The fishing boats of Simon Peter and his partners on the Sea of Galilee in Luke 5:1 to 11; small open boats worked by oar and net.
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Theseus's ship Myth and legend
Bacchus and Ariadne, 1520 to 1523
Artist Titian (c. 1488 to 1576)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG35)
Medium Oil on canvas
On the shore of Naxos, Ariadne turns in alarm as Bacchus leaps from his chariot towards her, his wild train of satyrs and nymphs behind. But look to the lower left: far out on the blue sea is the ship of Theseus, sailing away with the man who has abandoned her. That small sail is the reason for everything in the picture, her loneliness and the god's sudden love. Titian painted it for the Alabaster Room of Alfonso d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, combining all the purest and most vibrant pigments of his day.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ship in which Theseus sailed from Naxos after abandoning Ariadne, as told by Ovid and Catullus.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship of Saint Vincent's relics Myth and legend
Saint Vincent, Patron Saint of Lisbon, c. 1530s to 1550s
Artist Frei Carlos (active second quarter of the 16th century)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (58.145.2)
Medium Oil on wood
The deacon saint stands in a sumptuous gold brocade dalmatic, holding the martyr's palm and a closed book, and in his right hand a small ship, which the Metropolitan Museum describes as a miniature boat drawn with great precision. The ship is his emblem as patron of Lisbon. After his martyrdom ravens were said to have guarded his grave at Cape Saint Vincent, and in 1173 King Afonso I had the relics brought by ship to Lisbon Cathedral, a voyage still shown on the city's coat of arms. The Portuguese painter Frei Carlos puts a ship of his own age in the saint's hand.
The legend Legendary vessel: the relics of Vincent of Saragossa were brought by ship from Cape Saint Vincent to Lisbon in 1173; Frei Carlos renders it as a contemporary high-castled sailing ship.
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Full-rigged ship sailing past Icarus Unnamed
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1560s
Artist After Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525 to 1569)
Where to see it Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Oldmasters Museum), Brussels (4030)
Medium Oil on canvas
A ploughman turns his furrow, a shepherd looks up, an angler fishes, and a great ship sails on through the bay; only Icarus's legs, in the water just below the ship, tell us that a myth has ended. The composition is Bruegel's, but this canvas is now usually seen as a good early copy of his lost original. Auden, staying in Brussels in December 1938, took it as the example for his poem Musée des Beaux Arts, on how everything turns away from suffering. Few ships in art say so much by simply keeping their course.
“how everything turns away / Quite leisurely from the disaster”
The vessels An unnamed full-rigged sailing ship of Bruegel's time; Bruegel also made a design for an engraving showing the ship and falling figures.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: After Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Print
Armed three-masted ship Unnamed
Armed Three Master with Daedalus and Icarus in the Sky (from The Sailing Vessels), 1561 to 1565
Artist Frans Huys (1522 to 1562), after Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525 to 1569)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (28.4(2))
Medium Engraving
This engraving belongs to The Sailing Vessels, a series after designs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, engraved by Frans Huys and published by Hieronymus Cock. An armed three-master fills the plate, riding the waves, while high in the sky Daedalus and Icarus make their flight. Bruegel shrinks the myth to two small figures above the sea and gives the ship the whole stage: the fall of the boy becomes a detail beside the business of sailing, the same idea that runs through the Landscape with the Fall of Icarus long associated with his name.
The vessels An unnamed armed three-masted sailing ship of the mid-sixteenth century, one of the vessel types recorded in Bruegel's series The Sailing Vessels.
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' fishing boat Myth and legend
Christ at the Sea of Galilee, c. 1570s
Artist Circle of Jacopo Tintoretto, probably Lambert Sustris (c. 1515 to c. 1584)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1952.5.27), Samuel H. Kress Collection
Medium Oil on canvas
Long published as Tintoretto, this canvas is now catalogued by the National Gallery of Art as by the circle of Tintoretto, probably Lambert Sustris. Christ stands on the shore and raises a hand towards the apostles, who struggle in a small boat amid hostile waves. It is an example of mannerism: the postures are expressive, the muted sea and sky intense, and the paint is thin, and extreme highlights sharpen a light that seems to fall from a single compressed source. The little boat, heeling under its white sail, is tossed between the storm and the figure who calls to it.
The legend The disciples' fishing boat of the Gospels, a small open boat of the Sea of Galilee.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Circle of Jacopo Tintoretto, probably Lambert Sustris, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' boat Myth and legend
Jesus Being Awakened during a Tempest on the Sea of Galilee (folio 77 recto, Mirror of Holiness, Mir'at al quds), 1602 to 1604
Artist Mughal court painter, made for Prince Salim
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (2005.145.77.a)
Medium Gum tempera, ink, colour and gold on paper
The Mughal emperor Akbar, known for his interest in world religions, commissioned a Persian life of Christ, the Mirror of Holiness, from the Spanish Jesuit Jerome Xavier, and this illustrated copy was made at Allahabad for Prince Salim. Here the apostles panic in the storm while Jesus sleeps on, the moment before they wake him; one in green seems to be seasick, and a crocodile sticks its head out of the waves. The gale twists the sail violently and swings a Mughal-style tassel at the masthead. It is the only picture in the Cleveland manuscript based on an identifiable European print: a Gospel boat translated into the art of India.
The legend A vessel of the Gospel narrative, painted as a sailing boat with Mughal details such as the tassel at the masthead.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Cleveland Museum of Art, where the original is kept. Photo: Percival Kestreltail, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Myth, faith and allegory · Drawing
Peter's fishing boats Myth and legend
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (sketch for an engraving), 1618 to 1619
Artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577 to 1640)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG680)
Medium Black chalk and oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Rubens made this sketch as the model for an engraving by Schelte à Bolswert, basing it on the central panel of the triptych he painted in 1617 to 1618 for the church of the Mechelen Fishmongers' Guild, commissioned in a short spell of prosperity after fifty difficult years for the fishing industry. The fishermen haul in a net near breaking, two of them submerged in the sea to help with the weight, while Christ stands in the boat, his robe billowing in the sea air. In the upper left a man rows a second boat across to help with the load. It is a miracle of fishing, made for fishermen.
The legend The fishing boats of Simon Peter and his partners on the Sea of Galilee, from the Gospel of Luke (5:1 to 11).
Sources National Gallery
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship of Marie de' Medici Unnamed
The Disembarkation of Marie de' Medici at Marseilles (Le Débarquement de la reine à Marseille, le 3 novembre 1600), 1622 to 1625
Artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577 to 1640)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 1774)
Medium Oil on canvas
Part of the cycle Marie de' Medici commissioned to commemorate her life and that of her late husband Henri IV, this canvas records her arrival at Marseilles on 3 November 1600. Rubens turns a landing into mythology: the young queen steps from a sailing ship into the port while Fame flies overhead, an allegory of France welcomes her, and Neptune, with his tritons and nereids, looks on from the water. The ship is the hinge of the picture, the point where the voyage ends and a reign begins.
The vessels The sailing ship that brought Marie de' Medici to Marseilles on 3 November 1600, transformed by Rubens into a stage for allegory attended by sea gods.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Peter Paul Rubens, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' fishing boat Myth and legend
Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, 1633
Artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 to 1669)
Where to see it Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (stolen in 1990, whereabouts unknown)
Medium Oil on canvas
Rembrandt's only known seascape brings us close to the boat as a towering wave crashes against the bow and shreds the sail. The disciples fight to regain control, one vomits over the side, and one, looking straight out at us, is a self-portrait of Rembrandt; on the right, in shadow, Christ remains calm. Light streams from the upper left through a patch of blue sky while the right side sinks into darkness. It was his earliest large-scale work, painted at twenty-seven. In the early hours of 18 March 1990 thieves cut it from its frame at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and it has not been seen since.
The legend A vessel of the Gospel story (Luke 8:22 to 25), painted as a North Sea fishing boat. Rembrandt modelled it on the Dutch hoeker but made the hull asymmetrical and thickened the mast for drama.
Sources Wikipedia · gardnermuseum.org
Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Saint Paula's ship at Ostia Myth and legend
Landscape with Saint Paula of Rome Embarking at Ostia, 1639 to 1640
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
Philip IV of Spain commissioned landscapes from Claude, Poussin and others for a gallery in the Buen Retiro palace, and the Count-Duke of Olivares, who directed the work, imposed saints and biblical figures as subjects. Claude was given Saint Paula of Rome leaving the port of Ostia, one of four tall upright pictures he painted for the series. A tall ship waits at the far end of a harbour between palaces and a round tower, and rowing boats crowd the quay as Paula and her companions come down to embark. Details from it reappear in his Landing of Cleopatra at Tarsus.
The legend An imaginary ship for Saint Paula's departure from Ostia, painted as a ship of Claude's own time.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ships of Saint Ursula and the Barberini Myth and legend
Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula, 1641
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG30)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the Golden Legend Ursula, a Christian princess from Britain or Brittany, makes a pilgrimage to Rome with eleven thousand virgins and meets her martyrdom at Cologne on the way home. Claude shows her in yellow holding a flag with a red cross, watching her companions embark with bows and arrows, the weapons of their coming death. The bows of the ships on the right point across the picture to lead the eye to her, and the ships in the centre fly blue flags with the emblem of the Barberini, Claude's most influential patrons. The soft hazy light, low sun and calm sea are typical of Claude's seaports.
The legend Imaginary ships in an imaginary seaport; the ships in the centre fly the Barberini emblem, a compliment to the painting's owner, Fausto Poli, administrator of the Barberini possessions, and to his patrons.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Cleopatra's fleet at Tarsus Myth and legend
The Landing of Cleopatra at Tarsus (Le Débarquement de Cléopâtre à Tarse), 1642
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 4716)
Medium Oil on canvas
Plutarch describes Cleopatra sailing to Tarsus in 41 BC to meet Mark Antony, the start of their alliance. Claude sets the meeting in a harbour at dusk: the queen and her train have come ashore and are received by the city, while ships with masts and sails rise the full height of the left side and boats still ferry passengers in. Far out, more ships dissolve into the light of the setting sun at the centre of the canvas. Commissioned by Cardinal Angelo Giori, it later belonged to Louis XIV at Versailles.
The legend A historical episode told by Plutarch, painted with imaginary vessels in an imaginary port; Claude drew on details from his Embarkation of Saint Paula and Embarkation of Saint Ursula.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The fleet of Aeneas Myth and legend
The Trojan Women Setting Fire to Their Fleet, c. 1643
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (55.119)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the Aeneid the women of Troy, worn out by their long wandering since the Greeks took their city, set fire to their own ships so that the voyage must end. Claude sets the fleet off a beach beneath one of the luminous skies that the Met counts among the achievements of European landscape painting, while the women hurry along the shore towards the moored ships. Distant clouds and rain foretell the storm that Jupiter sent, at Aeneas's prayer, to put out the flames. The picture was painted for Cardinal Girolamo Farnese, who came to Rome in 1643 after years of missions abroad.
The legend A mythical fleet: the ships of Aeneas and the Trojan exiles in Virgil's Aeneid, painted as Claude imagined ancient vessels.
Sources The Met · Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's ship at Chryse Myth and legend
Ulysses Returns Chryseis to her Father (Ulysse remet Chryséis à son père), c. 1644
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 4718)
Medium Oil on canvas
Claude paints the port of Chryse as Ulysses arrives to bring Chryseis back to her father Chryses, the priest of Apollo. The great ship has come in to a harbour of palaces and colonnades, boats ply across the water, and on the left oxen are being landed for the sacrifice to Apollo demanded by the seer Calchas. It was commissioned by Roger du Plessis-Liancourt and hangs in the Louvre with its pair, Paris and Oenone. The National Gallery notes that it was one of the earlier pictures that inspired Claude's Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba.
The legend A mythical vessel from Homer's Iliad, painted as a large sailing ship of Claude's own century.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · National Gallery
Image: Claude Lorrain; photo Mbzt, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Queen of Sheba's fleet Myth and legend
Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1648
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG14)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Bible sends the Queen of Sheba to Solomon across the desert by camel; Claude sends her by sea. Crowned and dressed in red, she comes down the steps while two men carry a chest and others prepare to row her party out to the larger ships, all in the soft warm light of sunrise that catches the ripples, the undersides of the clouds and the silhouettes of the boats. Painted in 1648 for the Duc de Bouillon, whose name is inscribed on the last step, it hangs beside Turner's Dido building Carthage, because Turner left his picture to the nation on condition that it hang next to Claude's.
The legend Imaginary seventeenth-century ships in a classical port; the fleet stands for the Queen's voyage to Jerusalem in 1 Kings 10.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Print
Noah's Ark Myth and legend
Noah and the Animals Entering the Ark, 1650 to 1655
Artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609 to 1664)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1993.222)
Medium Etching
Animals were among Castiglione's favourite subjects, and the story of Noah gave him every excuse. Men guide horses, deer, dogs, goats and even guinea pigs towards the ark through a lush landscape of swirling vegetation. Castiglione had seen etchings by his contemporary Rembrandt, then little known in Italy, and borrowed their sketchy, draughtsman's freedom, combining deeply and lightly etched lines to create a recession into space. The ship here is a destination, glimpsed beyond the procession of creatures that will fill it.
The legend The vessel of the Genesis flood narrative, built by Noah to carry his family and the animals.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art
Image: Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship bound for Crete with Saint Paul Myth and legend
Coastal Scene with the Embarkation of Saint Paul, 1654
Artist Claude Lorrain (c. 1600 to 1682)
Where to see it Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (1962P69)
Medium Oil on copper
Acts tells how Paul, a prisoner sent to Rome, advised wintering in port, but the Roman officer and the ship's captain decided to sail on towards the Cretan harbour of Phoenix when a gentle south wind blew. Claude paints that fateful departure at dawn. Paul, the officer and the captain walk down to a boat that will take them out to the waiting ship; other ships lie at anchor behind two great ruined Corinthian columns, and a ray of light from the reflection of the rising sun points straight at the saint. Painted on copper for the Roman collector Carlo Cardelli, it was once sold as an Embarkation of Saint Paula.
The legend The ship of Acts 27 that carried Paul towards Rome as a prisoner; Claude paints it as a ship of his own day.
Sources Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Drawing
Noah's Ark Myth and legend
Noah's Ark, c. 1660
Artist Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 to 1669)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1953.36)
Medium Pen and brown ink and brush and brown ink wash on cream laid paper
Around 1660 Rembrandt drew Noah's family boarding the ark before the flood described in Genesis, in one of his most expressive uses of the reed pen. The vessel stretches across the entire width of the sheet, and he stressed the act of departure with figures in the lower left who gesture inward, as if pointing to where they will soon go. He drew a border, somewhat haphazardly, around the composition, a sign that he was satisfied with it. Scenes like this set the standard his pupils aimed to match.
The legend The vessel of the Genesis flood narrative, built by Noah at God's command.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The golden boat to Cythera Myth and legend
The Embarkation for Cythera (Pèlerinage à l'île de Cythère), 1717
Artist Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684 to 1721)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV. 8525)
Medium Oil on canvas
Watteau's reception piece for the Royal Academy in 1717 is a fête galante on the island of love. Couples rise from the grove of Venus and wander, cupids fluttering around them, down to the shore where a golden boat waits to carry them away. Oddly, they seem to be leaving Cythera rather than arriving, and Watteau never said which. The golden boat is less a vessel than a promise, the last step of a love affair painted in a haze where it could be dawn or dusk.
The legend An allegorical boat. Cythera, a Greek island, was held to be the birthplace of Venus; Watteau's idea may come from contemporary theatre, such as Dancourt's Les Trois Cousines.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Jean-Antoine Watteau, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Argo Myth and legend
The Capture of the Golden Fleece, 1742 to 1743
Artist Jean-François de Troy (1679 to 1752)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG6512)
Medium Oil on canvas
This small oil sketch is the third of a series of seven illustrations of the story of Jason, made as designs for cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry works and commissioned by Philibert Orry on behalf of the French king. Medea's magic has put the dragon to sleep, and Jason pulls the Golden Fleece down from its tree while she gestures in wonder. Some of the Argonauts watch admiringly; others direct the loading of the Argo for the triumphant departure of Jason and Medea. The National Gallery notes the ease and freedom with which de Troy worked at this scale, and the waiting ship turns a moment of triumph into the start of a voyage.
The legend A mythical vessel: the Argo, in which Jason and his Argonauts sailed to Colchis on the Black Sea in quest of the Golden Fleece.
Sources National Gallery
Image: Jean-François de Troy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Phlegyas's boat on the Styx Myth and legend
The Barque of Dante (La Barque de Dante, also Dante et Virgile), 1822
Artist Eugène Delacroix (1798 to 1863)
Where to see it Musée du Louvre, Paris (INV 3820)
Medium Oil on canvas
Delacroix's first picture shown in public and his first entry to the Paris Salon, painted intensively over two and a half months, takes Canto VIII of the Inferno: Dante and Virgil cross the Styx in the boat of Phlegyas while the damned cling to it and try to climb aboard, and the city of Dis burns behind. The boat is a small dark skiff low in the water, and everything depends on it. Gros praised it as a chastised Rubens, and scholars have compared its colour with Géricault's Raft of the Medusa. The drops of water on the bodies of the damned, painted in unmixed colours, were an early sign of Delacroix's analytical use of colour.
The legend A mythical vessel: the boat of the ferryman Phlegyas in Dante's Inferno, which carries Dante and Virgil across the marsh of the Styx.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's galley Myth and legend
Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, Homer's Odyssey, 1829
Artist J. M. W. Turner (1775 to 1851)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (NG508)
Medium Oil on canvas
Ulysses stands on the deck of his ship beneath a red banner, helmeted and in a scarlet cloak, raising the flaming torch with which he blinded the cyclops, whose huge shadowy body lies across the clifftop above. The sun rises through the morning mist, drawn by the horses of Apollo, and luminous nereids with flying fish gather at the prow. Turner painted it for the Royal Academy of 1829 when his canvases from Rome were delayed, in response to the sunrises of Claude. One hostile reviewer complained of colouring gone mad, but Ruskin called it the central picture of Turner's career.
“the central picture of Turner's career”
The legend A mythical vessel: the ship of Odysseus escaping the island of Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey, Book IX. Turner gave it banners, one bearing the Trojan Horse.
Sources National Gallery · Wikipedia
Image: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Sailing vessels on the sea held in a giant's goblet Myth and legend
The Titan's Goblet, 1833
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (04.29.2)
Medium Oil on canvas
Perhaps Cole's most enigmatic picture: a colossal stone goblet stands in an ordinary landscape, and on the water it holds sail tiny ships, while a Greek temple and an Italian palace sit among the greenery of its rim. Cole left no explanation. Readers have seen the world tree of Norse myth, the relic of a race of giants, or an echo of Turner's Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, which Cole had sketched on his European tour. His friend and biographer Louis Legrand Noble saw a fairy land for tourists, a little sea from Greece or the Holy Land. The ships make the goblet a world in miniature, a landscape within a landscape.
“a little sea from Greece, or Holy Land, with Greek and Syrian life”
The legend Imaginary vessels: Cole painted a miniature sea dotted with sailing ships and pleasure boats inside the goblet's rim.
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The voyager's boat Myth and legend
The Voyage of Life: Childhood, 1842
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
In the first of Cole's four pictures an infant, guarded by an angel, glides out of a dark, craggy cave into a lush green morning world. Cole called the cave emblematic of our earthly origin and the mysterious past. The boat is an ornate golden craft whose figurehead holds an hourglass, the sign of time, and it carries the child along a smooth, narrow stream that stands for the sheltered experience of childhood. Cole painted the first set in 1840 and this second set in Rome in 1841 to 1842; exhibited in several American cities, it drew further attention after his unexpected death in 1848.
The legend An allegorical vessel carrying the voyager along the River of Life through the four stages of human life; Cole wrote detailed descriptions of each picture.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The voyager's boat Myth and legend
The Voyage of Life: Manhood, 1842
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
Storm clouds close in, rain falls, and the boat plunges towards rapids through a gorge marked by a riven tree. The man has let go of the tiller, which may be broken, and kneels with hands clasped, looking up; far above, unseen, his angel still watches. Cole wrote that trouble is characteristic of the period of manhood, and that the upward and imploring look of the voyager shows the faith that saves him. In this second version Cole moved the boat closer to the rapids and changed the man from standing to kneeling.
“Trouble is characteristic of the period of Manhood.”
The legend An allegorical vessel carrying the voyager along the River of Life through the four stages of human life; Cole wrote detailed descriptions of each picture.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The voyager's boat Myth and legend
The Voyage of Life: Old Age, 1842
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
At the end of the voyage the water is calm and dark and the land almost gone, only a few rough rocks marking the edge of the earthly world. The figurehead and hourglass have vanished from the battered boat: the old voyager has reached the end of earthly time. His guardian angel hovers close beside him and gestures towards another angel descending from heaven through a break in the clouds, as the river opens into the waters of eternity. Cole described the chains of corporeal existence falling away. After three pictures of travel, the boat has become a place of arrival.
The legend An allegorical vessel carrying the voyager along the River of Life through the four stages of human life; Cole wrote detailed descriptions of each picture.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The voyager's boat Myth and legend
The Voyage of Life: Youth, 1842
Artist Thomas Cole (1801 to 1848)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington
Medium Oil on canvas
Now the voyager has taken the tiller himself. The angel waves from the bank and lets him go, and he leans forward in his boat towards a shining citadel in the sky, the dream of youthful ambition. The calm river seems to lead straight to it, but at the far right it turns rough, with dangerous rocks he cannot see. Cole wrote that the clear stream, the lofty trees and the unbounded distance figure forth the romantic beauty of youthful imaginings, before experience teaches what is the Real.
“figure forth the romantic beauty of youthful imaginings, when the mind elevates the mean and common into the magnificent”
The legend An allegorical vessel carrying the voyager along the River of Life through the four stages of human life; Cole wrote detailed descriptions of each picture.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Noah's Ark Myth and legend
Noah's Ark, 1846
Artist Edward Hicks (1780 to 1849)
Where to see it Philadelphia Museum of Art
Medium Oil on canvas
Hicks, a Quaker minister who had once earned his living as an ornamental painter, based this composition on an 1844 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier and filled it with animals like those of his Peaceable Kingdom pictures. Under a dark storm sky the animals make their way two by two towards the ark and up the ramp into it, as peaceable here as in his visions of harmony between creatures and people. For Hicks the ark stood for redemption and for the hope that all could live together in peace. He painted it three years before his death.
The legend The vessel of the Genesis flood narrative, built by Noah at God's command to carry his family and pairs of every animal.
Sources Philadelphia Museum of Art · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' boat Myth and legend
Christ Asleep during the Tempest, c. 1853
Artist Eugène Delacroix (1798 to 1863)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (29.100.131)
Medium Oil on canvas
Delacroix painted at least six versions of the Gospel story in which Christ sleeps in the boat while a storm breaks over the Sea of Galilee and his disciples struggle to keep it afloat. In the Met's canvas the boat is small and crowded, tossed on blue-green water, with Christ lying at rest under a pale yellow halo. Vincent van Gogh saw the painting on display in Paris in 1886 and wrote of it as the blue and green sketch with touches of purple and red and a little lemon yellow for the halo, a boat that spoke through colour itself.
“speaks a symbolic language through color itself”
The legend A vessel of the Gospel narrative; a small open boat of the Sea of Galilee.
Image: Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The disciples' boat Myth and legend
Christ on the Sea of Galilee, 1854
Artist Eugène Delacroix (1798 to 1863)
Where to see it Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (37.186)
Medium Oil on canvas
Three Gospels tell how a furious storm broke out while Jesus and his disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee, and how, to their amazement, he calmed the wind and the waves. Delacroix painted several variations on the subject in 1853 and 1854, when it was popular with French Catholics under Louis Napoléon. In this version of 1854 a small two-masted boat heels in a green sea, its torn sail flapping loose, while the disciples struggle with the gear and Christ lies asleep at one end, his halo glowing. The little boat carries the whole drama of fear and faith.
The legend A vessel of the Gospel narrative told in Matthew, Mark and Luke; painted as a small open boat with two masts and sails.
Sources art.thewalters.org · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Eugène Delacroix, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Charon's boat Myth and legend
Charon Ferrying the Souls of the Dead across the Styx (Kharon), 1861
Artist Alexander Litovchenko (1835 to 1890)
Where to see it State Russian Museum, St Petersburg
Medium Oil on canvas
Litovchenko painted Charon carrying the souls of the dead across the Styx as a student at the Imperial Academy of Arts, and though his peers criticised his rather stilted compositions, the picture won him a lesser gold medal. It is the Academy's classical tradition at full stretch: the ferryman of the dead and his boat on the water between the living and the dead. Two years later, in 1863, Litovchenko left the Academy with several other young painters who challenged the academism that prevailed there.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ferry in which Charon carries the souls of the dead across the river Styx.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Alexander Litovchenko, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ragnar Lodbrok's ship Myth and legend
Kraka, 1862
Artist Mårten Eskil Winge (1825 to 1896)
Where to see it Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (NM 1247)
Medium Oil on canvas
In the saga, Ragnar Lodbrok sets the clever Kraka a riddle: come to me neither dressed nor naked, neither hungry nor fed, neither alone nor in company. She arrives wrapped in a fishing net, with an onion and a dog, and he is so impressed by her wit that he marries her. Winge paints her seated on the rocky shore in her net, her dog beside her and an onion on the ground, and far out on the water lies Ragnar's ship, the reason for the whole encounter. Painted in Rome, the picture was bought by King Charles XV and came to the Nationalmuseum on his death in 1872.
The legend A legendary ship of the saga hero Ragnar Lodbrok, shown by Winge as a small sailing ship in the distance.
Sources Wikipedia (SV) · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Mårten Eskil Winge, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The boat of illusions Myth and legend
Lost Illusions (Le Soir), 1865 to 1867
Artist Charles Gleyre (1806 to 1874) and Léon Dussart
Where to see it Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (37.184)
Medium Oil on canvas
Gleyre said the picture came to him as a vision on the evening of 1 March 1835, sitting on the bank of the Nile near Abydos. An ageing poet sits on the shore, his lyre at his feet, and watches a boat carry away his youthful dreams and illusions: maidens making music and a cupid strewing flowers. The figures wear classical Greek dress, but their vessel resembles a dahabieh, an Egyptian river boat. William Walters commissioned this replica of Gleyre's masterpiece Le Soir, now in the Louvre, through the dealers Goupil in 1865; begun by Gleyre's pupil Léon Dussart and reworked by Gleyre himself, it took two years to complete.
“this reproduction is beautifully done”
The legend An allegorical vessel which, as the Walters notes, resembles a dahabieh, an Egyptian river boat.
Sources art.thewalters.org · Wikipedia
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Elaine's funeral barge Myth and legend
Elaine, 1874
Artist Toby Edward Rosenthal (1848 to 1917)
Where to see it Art Institute of Chicago (1917.3)
Medium Oil on canvas
In Tennyson's Idylls of the King, Elaine dies of a broken heart after Lancelot spurns her, and her body is carried from Astolat to Camelot by boat. Rosenthal paints that last voyage: the pale maiden lies on a rich cloth in a barge garlanded with roses, a hooded boatman steering at the stern, on dark still water under an evening sky. Painted in Munich for a San Francisco banker, the picture was sold elsewhere when the banker refused to pay more, a small scandal. Bought by an American patron, it set off what the museum calls Elaine hysteria: clubs were formed in her honour, dirges and waltzes were composed, and copies of the poem sold out.
“In her right hand the lily, in her left”
The legend A fictional barge from Tennyson's Idylls of the King, which carries Elaine's body from Astolat to Camelot, rowed by a retainer.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
Image: Toby Edward Rosenthal, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ferry to the island Myth and legend
Island of the Dead (Die Toteninsel), second version, 1880
Artist Arnold Böcklin (1827 to 1901)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (26.90)
Medium Oil on wood
In April 1880 Marie Berna visited Böcklin's studio in Florence and was struck by the first Isle of the Dead, half-finished on the easel, so he painted this smaller version on wood for her. At her request he added the coffin and the female figure in white, an allusion to her husband's death years before, and then added them to the first version too. The boat is what makes the picture: a slow, silent crossing, the oarsman's stroke the only movement among stone and cypress. Many viewers have taken him for Charon.
The legend An imaginary boat, commonly read as Charon's ferry carrying a soul to the underworld.
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ferry to the island Myth and legend
Isle of the Dead (Die Toteninsel), first version, 1880
Artist Arnold Böcklin (1827 to 1901)
Where to see it Kunstmuseum Basel
Medium Oil on canvas
A rowing boat nears a rocky islet crowded with tall dark cypresses and cut with what look like tomb doors. An oarsman works from the stern; in the bow stands a figure clad all in white beside a festooned object read as a coffin. Böcklin never explained the picture, calling it a dream picture that should be so still that a knock at the door would startle. He completed this first version in May 1880 for his patron Alexander Günther; the coffin and the white figure were added after Marie Berna asked for them on her own version. Many viewers have seen Charon in the rower, carrying a soul across to the other shore.
“a dream picture: it must produce such a stillness that one would be awed by a knock on the door”
The legend An imaginary boat. Böcklin's island is thought in part to evoke the English Cemetery in Florence, close to his studio, where his infant daughter Maria was buried.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Wreck of Ulysses's ship Myth and legend
Ulysses after the Shipwreck, c. 1880 to 1884
Artist Jean-Charles Cazin (1841 to 1901)
Where to see it National Gallery, London (L694, on loan from Tate)
Medium Oil on canvas
Zeus has destroyed all of Ulysses's ships and crew for the killing of the sun god's cattle, and after nine days clinging to the timbers of his shattered ship the hero has reached the island of Ogygia. Cazin paints him alone on the shore, brooding in a brown sleeveless tunic and red sash, and in the foreground lies a large broken section of mast. That single spar is all that remains of the fleet, and it says more about loss than any storm could. The shore is most probably the coast at Equihen near Boulogne, where Cazin lived.
The legend A mythical vessel: the last of Odysseus's ships, destroyed by Zeus in a storm after the crew slaughtered the cattle of the sun god Helios.
Sources National Gallery
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Ray in Manila, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ferry to the island Myth and legend
Isle of the Dead (Die Toteninsel), third version, 1883
Artist Arnold Böcklin (1827 to 1901)
Where to see it Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Medium Oil on board
The third version, painted in 1883 for the dealer Fritz Gurlitt, is the one for which Gurlitt coined the title the picture has carried ever since, and from this version on one of the burial chambers in the rock bears Böcklin's initials. Prints were so popular in central Europe that Nabokov could write that they were found in every Berlin home, and Rachmaninoff wrote his symphonic poem after a black-and-white print. The white figure and the silent rower make the boat a crossing between worlds. This panel had a darker afterlife: Hitler bought it in 1933 and hung it at the Berghof and later in the New Reich Chancellery; it is now in the Alte Nationalgalerie.
“found in every Berlin home”
The legend An imaginary boat, commonly read as Charon's ferry carrying a soul to the underworld.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ship that cast Jonah overboard Myth and legend
Jonah, c. 1885 to 1895
Artist Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847 to 1917)
Where to see it Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1929.6.98)
Medium Oil on canvas mounted on fibreboard
Jonah flees from God by ship, the sea rises, and the sailors throw him overboard to save themselves; the great fish is waiting. Ryder chose this biblical tale of damnation, terror and salvation because it suited his poetic temperament, and painted Jonah struggling in the pitching waves beside the boat, with the whale close by. It is one of his most densely painted canvases, reworked so many times that the museum notes the paint is still soft to the touch after more than a century. Later American artists drew on his example; Jackson Pollock once said Ryder was the only American master who interested him.
“The only American master who interests me is Ryder.”
The legend A vessel of the Book of Jonah, the ship whose crew cast the prophet into the sea to calm a storm.
Sources Smithsonian American Art Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Albert Pinkham Ryder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The ferry to the island Myth and legend
Isle of the Dead (Die Toteninsel), fifth version, 1886
Artist Arnold Böcklin (1827 to 1901)
Where to see it Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig
Medium Oil on board
In 1886 the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig commissioned a fifth version of the Isle of the Dead, and it still hangs there. The formula is unchanged and still hypnotic: a small rowing boat arriving at the water gate, the oarsman at the stern, a standing figure clad entirely in white in the bow, and before it a white, festooned object commonly read as a coffin. Its admirers ranged from Freud, who kept a reproduction in his office, to Lenin, who had one above his bed, and Rachmaninoff answered the picture with a symphonic poem.
The legend An imaginary rowing boat bringing a white-clad figure and a coffin to a rocky island of the dead.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Flying Dutchman Myth and legend
Flying Dutchman, completed by 1887
Artist Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847 to 1917)
Where to see it Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1929.6.95)
Medium Oil on canvas mounted on fibreboard
Ryder took his subject from the legend Wagner set to music, the ship that can never make port and whose sight in bad weather sailors took as a portent of doom. In this small canvas a boat crowded with figures pitches in a storm, while the phantom ship looms as a shadow in the glowing sky beyond. The legend becomes weather and light rather than narrative. Ryder, who began painting in the whaling port of New Bedford, built his pictures slowly out of layers of paint, resin and varnish, often working on them for ten years or more; the surface of this one is now crazed with cracks.
The legend A legendary ghost ship, first mentioned in print in 1790 as a Dutchman lost off the Cape of Good Hope whose vision appears in very bad weather; it was commonly believed to have been a seventeenth-century cargo fluyt.
Sources Smithsonian American Art Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Albert Pinkham Ryder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
The Lady of Shalott's boat Myth and legend
The Lady of Shalott, 1888
Artist John William Waterhouse (1849 to 1917)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (N01543)
Medium Oil on canvas
Tennyson's Lady, cursed to see the world only in a mirror and to weave what she saw, has looked out of the window at Lancelot and brought the curse upon herself, and takes a small boat down the river towards Camelot and her death. Waterhouse paints the moment of setting out. She sits in white on the tapestry she has woven; at the bow are a lantern, a crucifix and three candles, two of them already blown out. Reeds, water plants and a pair of swallows make the river an English one. The little boat is both her escape and her bier.
The legend A fictional boat from Tennyson's poem The Lady of Shalott (1832, revised 1842), on whose prow the Lady writes her name before drifting down to Camelot.
Image: John William Waterhouse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's ship Myth and legend
Ulysses and the Sirens, 1891
Artist John William Waterhouse (1849 to 1917)
Where to see it National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Medium Oil on canvas
Waterhouse looks down into Ulysses's galley as it passes between high cliffs. The crew, their ears blocked, pull at the oars; Ulysses is bound to the mast so that he may hear the Sirens' song without risking himself or his ship. The Sirens swoop over the deck and perch on the rigging as birds with the heads of women, which surprised a public expecting mermaids, though the critic Marion Spielmann noted that classical Greek vases show them in just this way. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1891, it was bought that June by Sir Hubert von Herkomer for the National Gallery of Victoria.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ship of Odysseus (Ulysses) in Homer's Odyssey, Book XII.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: John William Waterhouse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
A Viking funeral ship Myth and legend
The Funeral of a Viking, 1893
Artist Sir Frank Dicksee (1853 to 1928)
Where to see it Manchester Art Gallery (1928.13)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dicksee paints the Viking sea burial as a scene of fire and night. On the shore a crowd of warriors raise their arms and weapons as the burning ship carrying the body is pushed out, an armoured man in a crested helmet at their head holding a flaming torch. Muscular men haul the boat, its stern carved into the head of a mythical beast, into the rough sea, while the dead Viking lies in full armour among the flames. Almost all the light comes from the pyre and the torch, glowing on the water and the wet shore beneath dark mountains. Dicksee designed the gilt frame himself, with a chain pattern taken from Viking ornament.
The legend An imagined Viking funeral ship, carved with a beast's head at the stern; the painting follows the romantic idea of burial at sea rather than any recorded event.
Sources manchesterartgallery.org · Wikimedia Commons · Art UK · Wikipedia
Image: Sir Frank Dicksee, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Leif Erikson's ship Myth and legend
Leiv Eirikson Discovering America (Leiv Eirikson oppdager Amerika), 1893
Artist Christian Krohg (1852 to 1925)
Where to see it Nasjonalmuseet (National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design), Oslo (NG.M.00558)
Medium Oil on canvas
Krohg puts us on the deck of Leif Erikson's ship as land appears on the horizon to the left. Leif stands at the steering oar in a mustard tunic, upright and pointing, while his men hunch around him, some of them seasick. The picture won a contest set by the Leif Erikson Memorial Association of Chicago and was shown at the World's Fair of 1893, beside the Viking, a replica of the Gokstad ship that had sailed from Norway for the occasion. A copy by Krohg's son Per has hung in the United States Capitol since 1936.
The legend The ship of Leif Erikson's voyage to North America told in the sagas of Icelanders. At the 1893 fair much of the literature wrongly presented both the replica Viking, built after the Gokstad ship, and the ship in Krohg's painting as exact copies of Leif's vessel.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Christian Krohg, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Vainamoinen's boat in the Kalevala Myth and legend
The Defense of the Sampo (Sammon puolustus), 1896
Artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865 to 1931)
Where to see it Turku Art Museum, Turku (66)
Medium Tempera on canvas
Gallen-Kallela takes the 43rd song of the Kalevala. Väinämöinen has stolen the precious Sampo from the witch Louhi, and she, turned into a giant bird with warriors riding on her back, overtakes his boat to seize it back. The old hero, white hair streaming, raises his sword from the bow while his men thrust spears and oars up at her claws. When it was first shown it was considered the painter's finest work, a battle for the soul of Finland fought from a small boat. The patron's wife disliked it so much that the commission was dissolved, and the Turku Arts Association bought it for the unheard-of price of 4,000 marks.
The legend A mythical vessel: in the Kalevala the heroes carry the stolen Sampo away by boat and are overtaken at sea by Louhi in the form of a giant bird.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Myth, faith and allegory · Painting
Ulysses's ship Myth and legend
Ulysses and the Sirens, 1909
Artist Herbert James Draper (1863 to 1920)
Where to see it Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull
Medium Oil on canvas
Draper brings the Sirens aboard. Homer has only two Sirens, who stay in their meadow, and ancient Greek art showed them as frightening creatures; Draper makes them beautiful sea women whose tails vanish as they climb over the side, so that their song becomes something the viewer can see. The rowers strain at their oars and Ulysses, tied to the mast, pulls against his bonds. The Ferens Art Gallery in Hull bought the canvas from the painter in 1910 for £600, and a smaller replica is at Leeds. The philosopher Jon Elster later borrowed its title for his book on precommitment.
The legend A mythical vessel: the ship of Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey.
Sources Wikipedia
Image: Herbert James Draper, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Comet Named ship
PS Comet, 1816
Artist Alexander Nasmyth (1758 to 1840)
Where to see it Science Museum, London (1903-43)
Medium Oil on canvas
A small canvas, about 18 by 26 centimetres, records one of the first steamboats in Europe to carry paying passengers. Nasmyth shows the Comet plying on the Firth of Forth in 1816, after her withdrawal from her original service on the Clyde. The painter was the right witness: in October 1788, when Patrick Miller sailed the steamboat designed by William Symington on Dalswinton Loch, Nasmyth was one of the crew. Here his curiosity for engines meets his gift for real places, and the little Comet becomes a quiet beginning of the age of steam at sea.
The real ship Built in the winter of 1811 to 1812 by John and Charles Wood of Port Glasgow for Henry Bell, with an engine by John Robertson of Glasgow, the Comet began a regular passenger service on the Clyde in August 1812, the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe. She was wrecked at Craignish Point near Oban on 15 December 1820.
Sources collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk · Wikipedia
Image: Alexander Nasmyth; photo Science Museum Group, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Ariel (ex-Arrow), or a Liverpool Post Office steam packet Named ship
The Paddle Steamer 'Ariel', 1831
Artist Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3204)
Medium Oil on canvas
Signed 'Walters and Son 1831', this is steam arriving off the Mersey while sail still rules the water. The paddle steamer passes the shore now known as New Brighton, with the Perch Rock Fort and lighthouse behind, another paddle steamer on the left and smaller sailing boats about her, a furled sail behind her funnel. Greenwich notes that the traditional identification as the Ariel may be wrong: the furled sail and the riser pipe from the boiler safety valves suggest one of the larger Liverpool Post Office packets. Either way, it is an early portrait of the mail steamers that tied Liverpool to Ireland.
The real ship The Arrow was built in 1821 to 1822 and went straight into service at Dover, joined the mail service in April 1825, was taken over by the Admiralty in 1837 and renamed Ariel, and remained the Dover packet until 1846. The museum suggests the painting may instead show a larger Liverpool Post Office packet such as the Lightning, the first Post Office steam packet ordered from Evans of Rotherhithe, in 1820.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
British Queen Named ship
The Steamship 'British Queen', 1838
Artist Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882)
Where to see it Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (WAG 3000)
Medium Oil on canvas
The British Queen was meant to be the first steamship of the British and American Steam Navigation Company and to race Brunel's Great Western to New York in 1838. She fell behind when the firm building her engines went bankrupt, so the company chartered the little Sirius instead, and history remembers the stand-in. When the British Queen finally entered service in 1839 she was the largest passenger ship in the world. Walters, who exhibited from Liverpool, shows her driving through heavy seas under steam and sail, the promise of the first Atlantic steam line.
The real ship Built for the British and American Steam Navigation Company and named for Queen Victoria, she was delayed eighteen months by the liquidation of her engine builder, so the company chartered Sirius in 1838. Entering service in 1839 as the largest passenger ship in the world, she made nine round voyages, was sold to the Belgian government in 1841 and was scrapped in 1844.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Britannia (Cunard paddle steamer, 1840) Named ship
Cunard Liner "Britannia" (Steamer Britannia in a Gale), 1842
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Peabody Essex Museum, Salem (M19323)
Medium Oil on canvas
Britannia met her share of heavy weather, and her crossings to Boston in April 1841 and January 1842 were particularly stormy; Charles Dickens was aboard in the 1842 storm and wrote about it eloquently. Lane painted her labouring in a violent sea, light bursting through the clouds to silhouette hull and rigging. He reportedly offered a version to the Cunard Line, which declined. The Lane catalogue suggests he borrowed from a stormy portrait of the Boston packet Nonantum by the Liverpool painter Samuel Walters, which reached Boston in 1842 with a Cunard steamer riding a mountainous wave on its horizon.
“The firm refused, no doubt feeling that the hazards it depicted were too discouraging for potential passengers.”
The real ship Britannia was built by the Scottish shipbuilder Robert Napier for Samuel Cunard and entered service in 1840, one of four sister ships with Acadia, Caledonia and Columbia, sailing from Liverpool to Boston by way of Halifax.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · MFA Boston
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, where the original is kept. Photo: Fletcher6, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Sirius Named ship
Paddle Steamer Sirius, 1842
Artist Samuel Walters (1811 to 1882)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (ZBA0734)
Medium Oil on panel
Walters painted the Sirius four years after the voyage that made her famous. A coastal packet built for the London to Cork run, she was chartered by the British and American Steam Navigation Company and left Cork for New York on 4 April 1838, arriving a day ahead of Brunel's Great Western. The panel, signed and dated 1842, gives an ordinary packet the dignity of a record-breaker: she is usually listed as the first holder of what was later called the Blue Riband.
The real ship Built in 1836 by Robert Menzies and Sons of Leith for the Saint George Steam Packet Company's London to Cork service, 703 gross tons, with a two-cylinder engine by Wingate and Co. Chartered for the Atlantic in 1838, she reached New York a day ahead of the Great Western. She struck rocks in fog in Ballycotton Bay, Ireland, on 16 January 1847 and sank.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Great Western Named ship
The SS 'Great Western', c. 1843
Artist Joseph Walter (1783 to 1856)
Where to see it The Postal Museum, London (2004-0134)
Medium Oil on canvas
This portrait of the Great Western was bought by the Post Office in 1989 and passed to the National Postal Museum, a fitting home, for steam made the Atlantic mail regular and her crossings between Bristol and New York set the pattern. Joseph Walter, a Bristol marine painter known for his pictures of Brunel's steamships, painted her several times. Here she is the sturdy wooden ancestor of every Atlantic liner in this chapter, the first steamship purpose-built for crossing the ocean.
The real ship Brunel's first steamship, completed in 1838, she was the largest passenger ship in the world from 1837 to 1839 and held the Blue Riband in both directions at intervals between 1838 and 1845. She was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company in 1847, served as a troopship in the Crimean War and was broken up on the Thames in 1856.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Great Western Named ship
The 'Great Western' riding a tidal wave, 11 December 1844, 1845
Artist Joseph Walter (1783 to 1856)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2379)
Medium Oil on canvas
Joseph Walter of Bristol, known for his paintings of Brunel's steamships, shows the Great Western lifted on an enormous sea, a moment the title dates to 11 December 1844. The ship is both heroine and proof: a wooden paddle steamer, the first steamship purpose-built for crossing the Atlantic, riding out weather on her regular service to New York. Greenwich holds this smaller version of a painting in the Bristol City Art Gallery and Museum, a sign of how much the image was wanted.
The real ship Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and launched at Patterson and Mercer's yard in Bristol on 19 July 1837, she sailed on her maiden voyage from Bristol on 8 April 1838 and reached New York on 23 April. After 45 Atlantic voyages she was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, served as a troop transport in the Crimean War, and was broken up at Castle's Yard on the Thames in 1856.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Flatboat on the Missouri Unnamed
The Jolly Flatboatmen, 1846
Artist George Caleb Bingham (1811 to 1879)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (2015.18.1)
Medium Oil on canvas
Before and alongside the steamboats, the western rivers carried freight on flatboats drifting with the current, and Bingham made their crews heroes. The National Gallery describes sunlight bathing the landscape and warming the men as they float downriver on a flat-bottomed boat, one dancing to music played by his companions while another gazes straight out at us. The museum notes that Bingham's knowledge of life on the Missouri and Mississippi is evident, and the picture keeps the flatboatmen's world alive, joyful and unhurried on the moving water.
The vessels Flatboats were flat-bottomed river craft that carried freight and people downstream with the current on the Missouri and Mississippi.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikidata
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Caledonia (Cunard paddle steamer, Britannia class), long identified as Britannia Named ship
The "Britannia" Entering Boston Harbor, 1848
Artist Fitz Henry Lane (1804 to 1865)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2000.825)
Medium Oil on panel
Long believed to show the arrival of Cunard's Britannia in 1840, the painting has been reread by the Lane catalogue: the blue flag hoist at her main reads 3362, which the Boston signal book gives to her sister Caledonia, and her plain female figurehead fits that name. Either way, it records the service that made Boston the major American port for mail and cargo to and from Europe. Lane shows the paddle steamer entering the harbour under a British ensign with an American courtesy flag at the fore, while two rowing boats full of men salute her, as Bostonians greeted each steamer's arrival with growing enthusiasm.
The real ship The four Britannia-class steamers (Britannia, Acadia, Caledonia and Columbia) were built for Samuel Cunard's British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, their wooden hulls contracted to Clyde shipyards and their engines designed by Robert Napier, and opened the mail service from Liverpool to Halifax and Boston in July 1840. They were paddle steamers with three masts and full rigging for sails.
Sources fitzhenrylaneonline.org · MFA Boston · Wikipedia
Image: Fitz Henry Lane, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Valkyrien and the tug Hertha Named ship
The Corvette Valkyrien Being Towed by the Steamer Hertha out of Copenhagen, before a Voyage to the East Indies, 1848
Artist Carl Frederik Sørensen (1818 to 1879)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Sotheby's, London, 9 December 2008, lot 30)
Medium Oil on canvas
Sørensen inscribed the picture with its own story: the corvette Valkyrien, under Captain M. P. Secher, towed by the steamer Hertha as she leaves Copenhagen for the East Indies in January 1848. A pupil of Eckersberg in perspective, Sørensen went to sea almost every year and took a special interest in the weather and its effects on the sea. It is a picture of transition: a sailing warship pulled into open water by the new power of steam. The next year Valkyrien fought at Heligoland, and Sørensen himself sailed with the navy there.
The real ship Valkyrien was a corvette of the Royal Danish Navy built in 1846; she saw action at the Battle of Heligoland on 14 June 1849.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Carl Frederik Sørensen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Great Britain Named ship
SS 'Great Britain' at Brunswick Wharf, Blackwall, mid-19th century
Artist Richard Ball Spencer (active 1840 to 1874)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (ZBA0738)
Medium Oil on panel
Greenwich calls it a curiously proportioned painting, and the long narrow panel suits its subject: the Great Britain lying at Brunswick Wharf, the London and Blackwall Railway's terminus. She flies the Royal Standard with French and American colours, implying a royal visit, perhaps before her maiden voyage of July 1845. Behind her are the masts of sailing ships in the East India Export Dock and the Blackwall Mast House, the old world of timber and canvas standing behind Brunel's iron hull. Spencer signed it on a barrel floating in the foreground, a painter's wink beside a revolution.
The real ship Built at the Great Western Dockyard, Bristol, and launched in 1843, she was the world's first iron-hulled, screw-propelled steam passenger liner and the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic, sailing on her maiden voyage to New York on 26 July 1845. After running aground at Dundrum Bay in 1846 she was sold, carried emigrants to Australia from 1852, ended as a hulk in the Falkland Islands and was towed home in 1970; she is now a visitor attraction in Bristol.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Richard Ball Spencer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Wood boat (flatboat carrying fuel for steamboats) Unnamed
The Wood-Boat, 1850
Artist George Caleb Bingham (1811 to 1879)
Where to see it Saint Louis Art Museum (14:1951)
Medium Oil on canvas mounted on board
No steamboat appears here, yet the whole picture waits for one. The late-afternoon sun paints the clouds pink and casts golden light over three men waiting with a load of wood, and the Saint Louis Art Museum explains why it mattered: steamboats burned about 200 cubic feet of wood an hour and had to stop often for fuel. Bingham, known in his lifetime as the Missouri artist, turns this humble trade into a still, luminous scene of patience, a portrait of the people who fed the steam age from the riverbank.
The vessels Wood boats were flat boats loaded with cut timber for sale to passing steamboats, which needed frequent refuelling on the western rivers.
Sources slam.org · Wikidata · Wikipedia
Image: George Caleb Bingham, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Great Britain Named ship
The Iron Steam Ship Great Britain, 3500 Tons, 500 Horse Power, 1852
Artist Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton (1820 to 1891), published by Rudolph Ackermann
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAH8914)
Medium Lithograph, hand-coloured
Published by Ackermann on 13 April 1852, the year the Great Britain began her long career on the Australian route after being refloated from Dundrum Bay and refitted, this large coloured lithograph sold the ship to the public by her numbers: iron, 3,500 tons, 500 horse power. Dutton had the reputation of being one of the finest lithographers of nineteenth-century ship portraits, admired for accuracy and detail, and Greenwich holds almost a complete collection of his published prints. Sheets like this carried Brunel's ship into parlours and shipping offices far from any quay.
The real ship Launched at Bristol on 19 July 1843 to Brunel's design, she was the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic, in 1845. After running aground in Dundrum Bay in 1846 she was refloated in 1847, sold and refitted, and from 1852 carried thousands of emigrants to Australia; she was converted to sail in 1882 and survives in Bristol.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Thomas Goldsworthy Dutton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Thomas Hunt (steamboat) and America (schooner yacht, 1851) Named ship
The Thomas Hunt and the America, 1852
Artist James Bard (1815 to 1897)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019.11)
Medium Oil on canvas
The self-taught Bard devoted his career to portraits of the steamboats and sailing ships of the Hudson and the waters round Manhattan, often commissioned by their builders and operators. The Met singles out this double portrait as an example of his most accomplished work. It sets the steamboat Thomas Hunt beside the yacht America, recently returned to New York after her celebrated victory in August 1851 in the first America's Cup race, and so stages on one canvas the dialogue between sail and steam, both honoured for their innovations of design and technology.
The real ship America was built for a syndicate of New York Yacht Club members, designed by James Rich Steers and George Steers and launched in New York on 3 May 1851; on 22 August 1851 she won the Royal Yacht Squadron's regatta round the Isle of Wight. The Thomas Hunt was a New York steamboat, of which little more is recorded.
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Rip van Winkle Named ship
The Hudson River Steamboat "Rip van Winkle", 1854
Artist James Bard (1815 to 1897)
Where to see it Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (47.1212)
Medium Oil on canvas
James Bard made a career of steamboat portraits, every window and flag in place. He began as a boy, with his twin brother John, painting the steamboat Belona in 1827, and the building boom of the 1850s in New York brought him many commissions from the owners of new vessels. His Rip van Winkle is signed 'Drawn & Painted by James Bard/162 Perry St NY. 1854'. Sometimes called naive art, and made by a painter who died poor and almost forgotten, his steamboat portraits have since become valuable.
The real ship The Rip van Winkle was a Hudson River steamboat of the 1850s, painted by Bard during the New York building boom of that decade.
Sources MFA Boston · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Isaac Newton (Hudson River steamboat, 1846) Named ship
The Low Pressure Steamboat "Isaac Newton" Passing the Palisades on the Hudson River, New York, 1855
Artist Charles Parsons (1821 to 1910), for Nathaniel Currier
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.57)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Charles Parsons drew the Isaac Newton broadside on as she headed down the Hudson past the rocky cliffs of the Palisades, passengers visible at bow and stern. Built in 1846 and refurbished in 1855 with grand interiors and a hull lengthened to 405 feet, she turned paddle wheels thirty-nine feet across. The print celebrates the grandeur of the Hudson River boats; its sequel was grim, for on 5 December 1863 a boiler explosion destroyed her, and although many passengers survived the fire, nine people died and almost twenty were severely injured.
The real ship Isaac Newton was built in 1846 for passenger and cargo service between New York and Albany, refurbished and lengthened to 405 feet in 1855, and destroyed by a boiler explosion and fire on 5 December 1863.
Sources The Met · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Charles Parsons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Flatboat moored at a St. Louis wharf Unnamed
Jolly Flatboatmen in Port, 1857
Artist George Caleb Bingham (1811 to 1879)
Where to see it Saint Louis Art Museum (123:1944)
Medium Oil on canvas
Bingham had painted The Jolly Flatboatmen in 1846; here, in 1857, he brings the boatmen into port. A flatboat lies at a wharf in St. Louis and the crew amuse themselves with homespun entertainment, the figures built into a pyramid with a dancer waving a red handkerchief at its centre, a fiddler playing beside him. The museum notes how far these rosy-cheeked river workers are from the violent, rambunctious flatboatmen described by writers of the day: they seem more mischievous than threatening. Along the waterfront behind them a steamboat waits, the river's future beside its past.
The vessels The flatboat was a rectangular, flat-bottomed boat with square ends that carried freight and passengers downstream on America's inland rivers; almost always a one-way vessel, it was usually broken up for lumber at the end of its voyage.
Sources slam.org · Wikipedia · Wikidata
Image: George Caleb Bingham, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Great Eastern (named Leviathan at her launch) Named ship
Building the 'Great Leviathan' (the 'Great Eastern'), c. 1858
Artist William Parrott
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3384)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Great Eastern lies on the stocks at Millwall, parallel to the Thames into which she would be launched sideways. Greenwich reads the canvas as a continuous narrative: contemporaries described the hull as a mass of bronze, black and brick-tinted metal, and the painter tries to catch exactly that, while barges flying the Royal Standard on the left seem to record Queen Victoria's private visit of 28 June 1858, almost certainly added later. Five times the size of the largest ship then in existence, she was said during building to be mistaken for a fortress. The picture holds all the pride and anxiety of Brunel's last great work.
“a grand tribute to commerce”
The real ship Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and built by John Scott Russell at Millwall, she was named Leviathan on 3 November 1857, but her sideways launch failed that day and she only took to the water on 31 January 1858; the name Great Eastern was restored in July 1858. She laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866 and was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: William Parrott, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Great Eastern Named ship
The Iron Steam Ship "Great Eastern", 22,500 Tons, Constructed under the Direction of I. K. Brunel, F.R.S., D.C.L., Commanded by Capt. William Harrison, 1858
Artist Charles Parsons (1821 to 1910)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (Popular Graphic Arts, LCCN 2002699730)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
The title is a list of boasts: iron, 22,500 tons, Brunel, and her commander, Captain William Harrison. Printed in 1858, the year the giant finally took to the water after months of struggle to push her sideways into the Thames, Parsons' lithograph shows her complete and dressed with flags on a smooth sea, small boats crowding round her paddle box. That is how she was meant to be, not as she then lay, still fitting out at Deptford. It is an advertisement for a dream, and the smooth water is the most optimistic thing in it.
The real ship Designed by Brunel and built by John Scott Russell at Millwall, the Great Eastern was launched sideways and finally floated on 31 January 1858, then fitted out at Deptford; far larger than any ship before her, she laid transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866 and was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Charles Parsons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Great Eastern Named ship
The "Great Eastern", c. 1859
Artist Charles Parsons (1821 to 1910), for Currier and Ives
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (Popular Graphic Arts, pga.04859)
Medium Lithograph
In 1859, before she had ever crossed the Atlantic, Currier and Ives were already selling New Yorkers a picture of the Great Eastern. The drawing is signed by Charles Parsons, and the print is listed in the Currier and Ives catalogue raisonné. The largest ship in the world had become a celebrity on both sides of the ocean long before she arrived, and a cheap popular print let anyone own her image.
The real ship The Great Eastern, designed by Brunel and floated in 1858, made her first Atlantic crossing as a liner in 1860. Her career as a cable ship made her famous again in 1866 with the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable.
Sources Library of Congress · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Charles Parsons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Great Eastern Named ship
The Great Eastern under weigh July 23rd (escort and other ships introduced being the Terrible the Sphinx the Hawk and the Caroline), c. 1860
Artist After Robert Charles Dudley (1826 to 1909); Day and Son, lithographers, with Thomas Picken
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAD6760)
Medium Lithograph, coloured
The print's long title reads like a newspaper report. Greenwich describes the scene as the Great Eastern during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, escorted by a number of smaller vessels including the Terrible, the Sphinx, the Hawk and the Caroline. Day and Son's lithographs let the public share the spectacle of a ship five times the size of the largest then in existence finally going to sea after years of difficulty. The escorts do the artist's work, giving her scale.
The real ship After a failed launch attempt in November 1857, the Great Eastern floated on 31 January 1858; during her trials in September 1859 a steam explosion killed five crewmen, and Brunel died shortly after. In June 1860 she began her first Atlantic crossing as a liner.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: After Robert Charles Dudley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Natchez and Eclipse Named ship
A Midnight Race on the Mississippi, 1860
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876), for Currier and Ives
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (2012.16.1)
Medium Colour lithograph with hand-colouring on wove paper
Fanny Palmer, the English-born lithographer who was the first woman in the United States to make her living as a full-time artist, drew this night race from a sketch by H. D. Manning of the Natchez. The National Gallery describes fire bursting from the tops of the smokestacks as the two boats power down a wide river at night, black smoke billowing back, people lining both decks under a moonlit sky; the Natchez carries the words Vicksburg, Natchez and New Orleans Mail Line around her name. It is the romance of the river at its height: rivalry, danger and speed, lit by furnaces and moonlight.
The real ship The Natchez, a boat of the Vicksburg, Natchez and New Orleans Mail Line as her lettering records, and the Eclipse were Mississippi side-wheel steamboats; the Natchez line of boats was run by Captain Thomas P. Leathers, who loved to prove his boats were the fastest.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Wikipedia
Image: Frances Flora Bond Palmer, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Great Eastern Named ship
PSS 'Great Eastern', 1860
Artist Edwin Weedon (died 1873)
Where to see it Science Museum, London (1868-63)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Science Museum keeps this portrait of the Great Eastern among its collections, a reminder that the Victorians saw her as a work of engineering as much as a ship. Weedon shows her as the paddle steamship she was, driven by both paddle wheels and a screw propeller. Painted in 1860, the year she at last entered Atlantic service, it catches the ship at the moment her owners still hoped she would pay.
The real ship Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and built by J. Scott Russell and Co. at Millwall, she floated in 1858; her length of 692 feet was not surpassed until 1899. She became a cable ship, laid the first lasting transatlantic cable in 1866 and was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Isabel II (ex-Royal William) Named ship
The Steamer Isabel II in a Heavy Swell (El vapor Isabel II en la marejada), before 1863
Artist Antonio de Brugada (1804 to 1863)
Where to see it Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid
Medium Oil on canvas
Antonio de Brugada, a Madrid-born marine painter and honorary court painter to Queen Isabel II from 1844, counted El vapor Isabel II among his principal works. The ship behind the name had a remarkable history. As the Royal William she crossed the Atlantic in 1833 almost entirely under steam, and one of her owners, Samuel Cunard, drew lessons from her that he used in founding his line. Sold to the Spanish Navy and renamed Isabel Segunda after the queen, she became the first steam warship to fire in anger, at Zarauz in 1839 during the First Carlist War. Brugada shows her in a heavy swell.
The real ship Royal William, a Canadian side-wheel paddle steamer built at Cape Blanc, Quebec, crossed the Atlantic in 1833 almost entirely under steam. Sold to the Spanish Navy as Isabel Segunda, she fired on Zarauz on 14 April 1839, and was driven ashore and wrecked at Algeciras on 8 January 1860.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (ES) · Wikipedia
Image: Antonio de Brugada, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Princess Named ship
"Wooding Up" on the Mississippi, 1863
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876), for Currier and Ives
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (2011.30.1); impression also at the Library of Congress
Medium Colour lithograph with hand-colouring on wove paper
The romance of the Mississippi ran on firewood. Palmer's night scene shows the steamboat Princess being loaded with wood by men gathered round a fire on the bank, orange smoke rising from her stacks into the dark sky, while another steamboat passes in the distance beneath a full moon. It is the other side of the racing prints: the endless labour of feeding the boilers. The Library of Congress impression records that the print was entered for copyright in 1863 and numbered among the firm's New Best Fifty.
The real ship The Princess was a Mississippi steamboat; like the river boats of her day she burned wood and had to stop to take on fuel.
Sources National Gallery of Art · Library of Congress
Image: Frances Flora Bond Palmer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
St. John (Hudson River steamboat) Named ship
The Hudson River Steamboat "St. John", 1864
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876), for Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.33)
Medium Lithograph printed in two colours, with some hand-colouring
In the mid-nineteenth century many travellers between New York and Albany preferred the steamboat on the scenic Hudson, a trip of about seven and a half hours each way. Fanny Palmer shows one of America's largest steamboats broadside on, St. John displayed on her paddle wheel cover and on the pennant above the captain's cabin, her reflection lying on the glassy river. Passengers crowd all three decks, fore and aft, to enjoy the Hudson Highlands. It is less a ship portrait than a portrait of a way of travelling.
The real ship St. John was a Hudson River passenger steamer launched in the 1860s for the People's Line and named after Alanson J. St. John, one of its founders; with her running mate Drew she was one of the river's so-called floating palaces.
Sources The Met
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Great Eastern Named ship
A Buoy Caught in the Paddle of the Steamship 'Great Eastern', c. 1865
Artist Henry Clifford
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3381)
Medium Oil painting
A small mishap becomes a painting because the man who painted it served in her engine room. Henry Clifford, recorded by Greenwich as the Great Eastern's second engineer, shows a buoy caught in one of her paddle wheels, the largest set of paddle wheels in existence. On a ship laying cable across an ocean, any stoppage of those wheels was felt below. It is a rare view of the working life of the great ship rather than her public glory.
The real ship The Great Eastern carried both paddle wheels and a screw propeller, with the largest paddle wheels in existence. From 1865 she worked as a cable ship, laying the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Great Eastern Named ship
The Steamship Great Eastern Laying the First Successful Atlantic Cable, 1865
Artist Henry Clifford
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3380)
Medium Painting
This is the Great Eastern painted from the inside: Greenwich records that the artist was the ship's second engineer. By 1865 the giant that had ruined her builders had found her true work, laying telegraph cable from Ireland towards Newfoundland. A passenger who saw her at sea off Ushant in 1869 described her escort steamer as looking like a waterman's boat beside her, and how his ship's crew manned the rigging and cheered as they watched the cable paying out. Clifford's picture carries that same pride, the pride of the men who kept her engines turning while she tied two continents together.
“We could plainly see the cable ‘paying’ out.”
The real ship Launched in 1858, the Great Eastern had both paddle and screw propulsion and made only nine Atlantic crossings before conversion to a cable ship. Her 1865 attempt failed when the cable broke, but in 1866 she laid a new cable and recovered and completed the 1865 one; in 1869 she laid a French Atlantic cable from Brest.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Racing Mississippi steamboats Unnamed
The Champions of the Mississippi: "A Race for the Buckhorns", 1866
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876), for Currier and Ives
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (pga.00658)
Medium Lithograph
Fanny Palmer drew this contest for Currier and Ives in 1866: three tall-stacked side-wheelers running neck and neck, black smoke pouring from their chimneys, while people cheer round a bonfire on the wooded bank. Her title promises 'a race for the buckhorns'. English-born, Palmer produced around two hundred lithographs for the firm and was widely renowned for her technical skill, and in scenes like this she fixed the image of the racing river steamboat in the popular mind, part sport, part danger, all spectacle.
The vessels The Mississippi steamboat began with the New Orleans, a heavy side-wheeler launched at Pittsburgh in 1811; by the 1860s tall-stacked side-wheel packets like these crowded the river.
Sources Library of Congress · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Frances Flora Bond Palmer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Great Eastern Named ship
Homeward Bound: "The Great Eastern", c. 1866
Artist Robert Charles Dudley (1826 to 1909)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (92.10.42)
Medium Oil on canvas
This large canvas by the British watercolourist and lithographer Robert Dudley shows the Great Eastern under the title Homeward Bound. Its provenance tells the rest: the painting was given to the Metropolitan Museum in 1892 by Cyrus W. Field, and the museum files it under the transatlantic cable. For the men of the cable, the giant ship was not Brunel's commercial failure but the only hull big enough to carry it across the ocean. The title turns an engineering triumph into a homecoming.
The real ship Brunel's Great Eastern, floated in 1858, was 692 feet long, a length not surpassed until 1899, and carried both paddle wheels and a screw. After a disappointing career as a liner she laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866; she ended as a floating music hall and advertising hoarding in Liverpool and was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Queen of the West and two other Mississippi steamboats Named ship
"Rounding a Bend" on the Mississippi: The Parting Salute, 1866
Artist Frances Flora Bond Palmer (1812 to 1876), for Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.47)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
Currier and Ives issued more than thirty prints of the Mississippi, and pictures of steamboats were among the most popular with the public. Here three paddle-wheel steamboats round a bend in the river, and the Queen of the West fires a signal rocket, the parting salute of the title. Hand colouring turns the image into a moonlit night, with orange fiery smoke belching from the smokestacks. The designer, Fanny Palmer, was one of the most important artists working for Nathaniel Currier and later Currier and Ives between 1849 and 1868, when she produced about two hundred of the firm's best landscapes.
The real ship The Mississippi steamboats of the 1860s were paddle-wheel steamers carrying passengers and freight on the river; the Queen of the West shown here is not otherwise identified.
Sources The Met · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Frances Flora Bond Palmer, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Bristol (1867) and Providence (1866), Long Island Sound steamers Named ship
Steamboats Passing at Midnight: On Long Island Sound, 1868 to 1874
Artist Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers (active 1857 to 1907)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.346)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph
A moonlit meeting on Long Island Sound, a lighthouse in the background at left. The Bristol, in the foreground, heads one way and her sister Providence the other. They were built with the largest engines of their day and were called floating palaces, with 240 staterooms, berths for up to 1,200 passengers and cargo space equal to forty railway wagons, running between New York and Rhode Island. The print catches the romance of night travel by water; Providence served until 1901, while Bristol was destroyed by fire on 30 December 1888 on arrival at Newport.
The real ship Providence was launched in 1866 and her sister Bristol made her maiden voyage in 1867, on the Long Island Sound route between New York and Rhode Island. Providence ran until 1901; Bristol was destroyed by fire on 30 December 1888 on arrival at Newport.
Sources The Met · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Robert E. Lee and Natchez Named ship
The Great Mississippi Steamboat Race: From New Orleans to St. Louis, July 1870, between the R.E. Lee, Captain John W. Cannon, and Natchez, Captain Leathers, 1870
Artist Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers (active 1857 to 1907)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.405); another impression at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (PAH0339)
Medium Hand-coloured lithograph, with gum arabic
The great race of 1870 was run between New Orleans and St. Louis, and Currier and Ives put its result straight into the title: won by the R. E. Lee in 3 days, 18 hours and 30 minutes over 1,210 miles. The print shows the two side-wheelers racing from the background towards us, the Lee at left and the Natchez at right. By the popular account, Captain Cannon stripped the Lee of excess weight, carried few passengers and arranged refuelling barges in advance, while the Natchez carried her normal load and lost hours to fog. This lithograph immortalised the race.
The real ship Robert E. Lee, the 'Monarch of the Mississippi', was built at New Albany, Indiana, in 1866 to a hull designed by DeWitt Hill. The Natchez was the seventh boat of that name run by Captain Thomas P. Leathers, built at Cincinnati in 1869, and had beaten the speed record set by the J. M. White in 1844.
Sources The Met · Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Currier and Ives, lithographers and publishers, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Shipping in the river Unnamed
The Captain's Daughter, 1873
Artist James Tissot (1836 to 1902)
Where to see it Southampton City Art Gallery
Medium Oil on canvas
Shown at the Royal Academy in 1873, and sometimes confused with The Last Evening shown there the same year, this is Tissot's comedy of courtship by the water. A younger man seems to be failing to win the captain's daughter, either because she is not interested or because her father is hard to win over; in another reading, the older man is bolstering the younger with drink and advice. The young woman has turned away from both of them, field glasses raised, to stare at the shipping in the river. The ships are her escape, the world beyond the men's talk.
The vessels The masts of unnamed ships in the river, seen from the waterside; the painting does not identify them.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Ship's deck in the port of London Unnamed
The Last Evening, 1873
Artist James Tissot (1836 to 1902)
Where to see it Guildhall Art Gallery, City of London (737)
Medium Oil on canvas
Tissot settled in Britain after the Franco-Prussian War, and The Last Evening, shown at the Royal Academy in 1873, is set aboard a ship among her rigging and deck fittings. It is never made clear who the figures are to one another or what this last evening means: a departure, a farewell, a courtship ending. A young woman reclining in a rocking chair, studied separately in a drawing now at the Getty, is at its heart, with a young officer leaning towards her. The ship is the reason for the mood, a place where every evening might be the last before sailing.
The vessels An unnamed sailing ship, her masts, rigging and deck furniture filling the background; the painting does not identify the vessel.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Drew and St. John (Hudson River steamboats) Named ship
American Steamboats on the Hudson, Passing the Highlands, 1874
Artist Charles Richard Parsons (1844 to 1918) and Lyman W. Atwater, for Currier and Ives
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (63.550.31)
Medium Lithograph, printed in colour
After the 1840s many travellers took luxury steamers up the Hudson from New York or Albany, bound for holidays at Saratoga Springs or Lake George. Parsons and Atwater, known for maritime scenes and city views, show two of the great floating palaces of the 1860s, the Drew and the St. John, in the Hudson Highlands. Inside were inlaid mahogany staircases, huge mirrors and paintings, fine restaurants and arcades. The Met reads the print as a way of broadcasting the skills of American shipbuilders, who were competing against the British in world trade and travel.
The real ship The Drew and the St. John were Hudson River passenger steamers of the People's Line, launched in the 1860s and named after the line's founders, Daniel Drew and Alanson J. St. John.
Sources The Met · Library of Congress
Image: Charles Richard Parsons, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Ship's deck dressed for a ball during a regatta Unnamed
The Ball on Shipboard, c. 1874
Artist James Tissot (1836 to 1902)
Where to see it Tate, London (N04892)
Medium Oil on canvas
A ship's deck is turned into a ballroom under an awning hung with the flags of many nations, during a regatta off the Isle of Wight. Tissot drew on the idea of fashionable gatherings on the royal yacht, though the lady in the straw hat by the rail is not, as once believed, the Princess of Wales. The Times praised the grace of the girls, the taste of their dresses and the characterisation of the gentlemen, yachtsmen and naval officers alike. The ship becomes a floating drawing room, its rails, awnings and bunting framing a whole society at play.
“the scene on board a man of war at Spithead, converted into a ball-room by an awning lined and fringed with flags”
The vessels The setting is a ship's deck dressed for a ball during regatta week off the Isle of Wight; The Times of 1874 read it as a man-of-war at Spithead. No specific vessel is identified.
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
HMS Calcutta Named ship
The Gallery of HMS 'Calcutta' (Portsmouth), c. 1876
Artist James Tissot (1836 to 1902)
Where to see it Tate, London (N04847)
Medium Oil on canvas
Two women in gauzy white dresses and a young naval lieutenant stand on the quarter gallery at the stern of HMS Calcutta, the curves of the iron railings echoing the corseted figure of the woman who hides her face behind her fan. Troopships lie beyond under smoky grey skies. The old teak warship, by then a gunnery training ship at Portsmouth, becomes a stage for flirtation and moral uncertainty; the title may even hide a French pun. Henry James dismissed it as 'hard, vulgar and banal', yet the ship's railings and the women's dresses are painted with loving precision.
“hard, vulgar and banal”
The real ship An 84-gun second-rate built of teak at Bombay and launched in 1831, Calcutta served in the Baltic during the Crimean War and in the Second Opium War, becoming in 1858 the first ship of the line to visit Japan. From 1865 she was a gunnery ship at Portsmouth alongside HMS Excellent; she later moved to Devonport and was sold for breaking up in 1908.
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Small boat among Thames shipping Unnamed
On the Thames (How Happy I Could Be with Either?), 1876
Artist James Tissot (1836 to 1902)
Where to see it The Hepworth Wakefield (A1.323); drypoint version 'The Thames' at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (PAG9433)
Medium Oil on canvas
A single man, perhaps a sailor, takes two unchaperoned young women on a pleasure trip through the crowded shipping of the Thames, a picnic hamper and bottles of champagne at their feet. Royal Museums Greenwich notes that critics at the time found the image 'fast', and at the Royal Academy in 1876 it was poorly received, one critic calling it 'more French than English'. Behind the trio the working river goes on, masts, hulls and funnel smoke in the London haze. The modern steam river becomes the setting for a modern, and disapproved of, pleasure.
The vessels The boat carries its passengers past moored sailing ships and smoking steamers, the busy commercial traffic of the Victorian Thames.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Ships of the line and an ironclad in Portsmouth Dockyard Unnamed
Portsmouth Dockyard, c. 1877
Artist James Tissot (1836 to 1902)
Where to see it Tate, London (N05302)
Medium Oil on canvas
A Highland sergeant in kilt and feather bonnet sits in a rowing boat between two women, turning from the unhappy one under her parasol towards the smiling one. Around them tower the bows of two old square-rigged ships of the line, a naval boat's crew passes, and in the background lies a modern ironclad. Tissot reworked the subject from his On the Thames, which one critic had called 'wilfully vulgar', and his etching of it carried the title Entre les deux mon coeur balance. The old wooden navy and the new iron one frame a very human hesitation.
“wilfully vulgar”
The vessels Two old square-rigged ships of the line and a modern ironclad share the harbour, the wooden and iron navies side by side in the Portsmouth of the 1870s.
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Baltic (White Star Line, 1871) Named ship
The Steamship Baltic, 1879
Artist Antonio Jacobsen (1850 to 1921)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (BHC3219)
Medium Oil on canvas
A portrait of an Atlantic liner signed 'N. Jacobsen 1879'. Baltic flies the White Star house flag at her mainmast and the American flag at the fore. She belonged to the young White Star Line, which entered the fiercely competitive North Atlantic emigrant trade around 1871, and in 1873 she took the Blue Riband with a record passage between New York and Queenstown. Advertisements of the day promised quick and regular crossings, with staterooms placed amidships, away from the noise and motion at the after part of the ship.
“designed to afford the very best accommodation to all classes of passengers”
The real ship Built by Harland and Wolff at Belfast and launched in 1871 as Pacific, she was renamed Baltic that year and sailed on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Queenstown and New York. Chartered to the Inman Line in 1883 and sold to the Holland America Line in 1888 as Veendam, she foundered in the North Atlantic in February 1898 after a collision with a wreck, with no loss of life.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: Antonio Jacobsen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
A steam tug leaving Ostend Unnamed
A Tug Leaving the Harbour of Ostend at High Tide (Ein Schlepper verlässt den Hafen von Ostende bei Flut), before 1879
Artist Andreas Achenbach (1815 to 1910)
Where to see it Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA), inv. 1500
Medium Oil on canvas
Achenbach, one of the founders of the Düsseldorf school, was a landscape and seascape painter in the Romantic style, and he and his brother Oswald were regular visitors to Ostend. Here a steam tug leaves the harbour of Ostend at high tide. The painting was bought from the artist in 1879 by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and is now in the city's Royal Museum of Fine Arts. It is steam against the sea, painted by a Romantic who found drama in the everyday traffic of a port.
The vessels An unnamed harbour steam tug of Ostend, of the kind that towed vessels in and out of the port.
Sources Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Andreas Achenbach, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
A sailing ship towed by a steam tug Unnamed
In the Gulf of Finland (V Finskom zalive), 1881
Artist Lev Lagorio (1826 to 1905)
Where to see it Tyumen Museum of Fine Arts, Tyumen
Medium Oil on canvas
Lagorio knew these waters: in 1846 he sailed his own boat along the shores of the Gulf of Finland. In a flat calm, under a pale turquoise sky, a tall black-hulled sailing ship with her sails furled is towed by a small tug with a tall funnel, a man at her wheel, their reflections lying still on the water. It is a quiet picture of the changing sea: sail waiting on steam when the wind fails. The contrast of the two hulls, one tall and elegant, one small and purposeful, is the whole subject.
The vessels An unnamed square-rigged merchant ship under tow by a small steam tug in the Gulf of Finland.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (RU)
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Ships at the Glasgow quays on the Clyde Unnamed
Shipping on the Clyde, 1881
Artist John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 to 1893)
Where to see it Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Carmen Thyssen collection (CTB.1989.28)
Medium Oil on millboard
Glasgow by moonlight: shop windows glow along the street by the Clyde, two dockworkers warm themselves at a small fire, and the masts of the moored ships rise in the mist. It has been called a lyrically beautiful evocation of the industrial era, painted so exactly that it captures the chill in the damp air and the moisture soaking into the heavy clothes of the few figures awake. On the great shipbuilding river, Grimshaw paints not the noise of the yards but the port's silent night, the sailing ships standing like a leafless wood against the sky.
The vessels Unnamed sailing ships berthed along the Clyde in central Glasgow in the early 1880s, when the river was one of the great ports of the Victorian world.
Image: John Atkinson Grimshaw, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Steam tug with a coal barge in the Pool of London Unnamed
Toil, Glitter, Grime and Wealth on a Flowing Tide, 1883
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it Tate, London (N01580)
Medium Oil on canvas
Looking west through the Pool of London, Wyllie puts a coal barge lashed to a steam tug in the foreground, lightermen at work on her load, and lets the smoke of a whole working river rise behind among the masts. Royal Museums Greenwich, which holds his etching after it, call the painting his most important picture, the one that helped to make his reputation when he showed it at the Royal Academy in 1883. The title names both sides of the river's life, the wealth of commerce and the toil of the men who moved it. Steam here is not romance but coal, grime and labour on the tide.
“there was a stark contrast between the wealth created by commerce and the toil of those employed on the river”
The vessels Steam tugs and lighters moved coal and cargo through the crowded Pool of London; the lightermen who worked them were, as Royal Museums Greenwich puts it, those employed on the river whose toil made its wealth.
Sources Tate · Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
SMS Oldenburg Named ship
The Building of the Oldenburg, a Central Battery Ship, at the Vulcan Dockyard in Stettin (Bau der Panzerkorvette Oldenburg auf der Stettiner Werft Vulcan), 1886
Artist Carl Hochhaus (1852 to 1935)
Where to see it Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin (Gm 97/8)
Medium Painting
Hochhaus paints the hull of the Oldenburg rising above the Vulcan yard at Stettin, a crowd of workmen, forges and scaffolding around her and a great bronze propeller glinting in the foreground. The yard built warships for the Imperial German Navy as well as some of the most famous German civilian ships. It is a picture of pride in industry, for the Oldenburg was the first German capital ship built entirely of German-made steel, a hull whose metal was as much a statement as her guns.
The real ship Laid down at AG Vulcan, Stettin, in 1883, launched in December 1884 and commissioned in April 1886, Oldenburg carried eight 24 cm guns amidships and was the first German capital ship built entirely of German-made steel. She saw little service, became a harbour-defence ship in 1900 and a target ship from 1912, and was broken up in 1919.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia · Wikidata
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Sailing ships and steamers moored along the Liverpool waterfront Unnamed
Liverpool Quay by Moonlight, 1887
Artist John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 to 1893)
Where to see it Tate, London (T00902)
Medium Oil on canvas
An omnibus with a green rear lamp has stopped on the damp cobbles to pick up a woman in front of lit shop windows, and along the quay to the left the masts of the moored ships rise into the moonlit haze. Grimshaw made the Victorian port city his own subject, painting the docks of London, Hull, Liverpool and Glasgow by night in a sharply focused, almost photographic manner. Whistler, the other great painter of nocturnes, paid him the handsomest compliment. The ships here are the city's forest of masts, glimpsed between gaslight and moonlight.
“I considered myself the inventor of nocturnes until I saw Grimmy's moonlit pictures.”
The vessels Unnamed sailing ships moored along the Liverpool waterfront; only their masts and rigging show above the quay.
Image: John Atkinson Grimshaw, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Søndhordland Named ship
The Local Steamer at the Pier (Lokalbåt ved kaien), 1891
Artist Johannes Grimelund (1842 to 1917)
Where to see it Norwegian Maritime Museum, Oslo (NSM.K03041)
Medium Oil on canvas
Grimelund, the Norwegian painter who trained in Christiania, Düsseldorf, Karlsruhe and Paris, paints a local steamer lying at a small quay. She has been identified as DS Søndhordland, a steamer built in 1872 that served the Hardanger Sunnhordlandske company of Bergen from 1880 to 1949. Grimelund gives a humble working boat the attention usually kept for great ships, and the picture now hangs in the Norwegian Maritime Museum in Oslo.
The real ship DS Søndhordland was built in 1872 and served Hardanger Sunnhordlandske Dampskipsselskap (HSD), the Bergen fjord steamer company founded in 1880, from 1880 to 1949.
Sources Wikidata · Wikipedia (NO) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Johannes Grimelund, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Murtaja, Astra and Botnia Named ship
Steamboats: the Icebreakers Murtaja, Astra and Botnia off Helsinki (Höyrylaivoja), 1891
Artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865 to 1931)
Where to see it Gallen-Kallela Museum, Espoo (GKM 290)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1891 the young Gallen-Kallela looked at modern Finland: three steamships in the frozen sea off Helsinki, identified by the Gallen-Kallela Museum as the icebreakers Murtaja, Astra and Botnia. The canvas is small, only 19 by 38 cm. Murtaja, completed the year before, was Finland's first state-owned icebreaker and one of the first purpose-built icebreakers in the world. The picture records the moment when steam began to keep a winter sea open.
The real ship Murtaja was built by Bergsunds Mekaniska Verkstad in Stockholm, launched in December 1889 and completed in March 1890, the first state-owned icebreaker of Finland and one of the first purpose-built icebreakers in the world; she served for 68 years and was scrapped in 1958.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikidata · Wikipedia
Image: Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Ships in the Liverpool docks at night Unnamed
Liverpool Docks by Night, 1892
Artist John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 to 1893)
Where to see it Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (WAG 10328)
Medium Oil on canvas
Painted the year before his death and now in Liverpool's own Walker Art Gallery, this small canvas returns to the subject Grimshaw made his own: the docks of a great port at night. The masts of the ships rise along the left of a wet, gaslit dock road, while a carriage and a few figures pass the glowing shop windows. His pictures of gaslit streets and misty waterfronts, as one writer put it, conveyed an eerie warmth as well as alienation. The ships are not portraits but presences, the sleeping machinery of a trading city.
The vessels Unnamed sailing ships moored in Liverpool's docks in the early 1890s, shown only by their masts and rigging above the quay.
Image: John Atkinson Grimshaw, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Missouri (American famine relief steamer) Named ship
The Relief Ship (Korabl pomoshchi), 1892
Artist Ivan Aivazovsky (1817 to 1900)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Sotheby's, 2008)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1892 an American Famine Fleet of six steamships carried food to a Russia stricken by famine, and the painting's full Russian title names this one: the arrival of the steamer Missouri with bread in Russia. Aivazovsky pictured the events that year in two canvases, The Relief Ship and Food Distribution. Travelling to America in October 1892, he gave both to the Corcoran as an act of diplomacy. At home the Tsar barred the paintings, judging their themes unpatriotic. The ship here is a merchant steamer on a mission of mercy, carrying a cargo of bread rather than guns.
The real ship The relief ships sailed to Russia between late February and mid-July 1892, carrying about 2,000 tons of food each on average; Indiana reached Liepāja (Libau) on 16 March with 1,900 tons and Missouri on 4 April with a further 2,500 tons.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Ivan Aivazovsky, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
May McWilliams (ocean-going tug) Named ship
The Ocean Going Tug "May McWilliams", c. 1895
Artist Antonio Jacobsen (1850 to 1921)
Where to see it Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington (1966.83)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Danish-born Jacobsen, who settled in West Hoboken across the Hudson from Manhattan, spent his free time at New York's harbour and along the river, painting everything from tugboats to transatlantic liners; he produced more than 6,000 portraits of sail and steam vessels. Here he gives a working tug the full dignity of a portrait. Look closely, the Smithsonian suggests, and you can see her captain in the top cabin at the front and a single passenger at the rear. Harbour captains had used tugs since the 1700s to escort larger ships through narrow or complicated passages.
The real ship May McWilliams was an ocean-going tug, known here from Jacobsen's portrait of about 1895; nothing further is recorded about her.
Sources Smithsonian American Art Museum · Wikipedia
Image: Antonio Jacobsen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
An imaginary steamship in a storm Unnamed
The Ship in the Storm (Le Navire dans la tempête), c. 1899
Artist Henri Rousseau (1844 to 1910)
Where to see it Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris (RF 1960 27), Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume collection
Medium Oil on canvas
Rousseau's ship is caught in a crossing that is no pleasure cruise. The Orangerie describes her as an amalgam of different models: portholes like a liner, a ram bow like a battleship, a mixture also found in the toy boats of the day, while the offset third funnel recalls the cruiser D'Entrecasteaux, launched in 1896. The sea looks cut from sheet metal and the sky is treated like a stage backdrop, which the writer Jean-Pierre Labiau compares to the mechanical boats of fairground stalls. Rousseau wrote of his fascination with the art of simple people, shop signs, votive pictures and fairground booths, and his steamer comes straight from that world.
The vessels An imaginary vessel: the museum describes the ship as a mixture of liner, battleship and toy boat, with a third funnel recalling the French cruiser D'Entrecasteaux of 1896.
Sources musee-orangerie.fr · Wikipedia (FR)
Image: Henri Rousseau; photo Siren-Com, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Drawing
Oceanic Named ship
The White Star Liner Oceanic (II) off New Brighton, Having Just Left Liverpool Bound for New York, 1904
Artist Charles Dixon (1872 to 1934)
Where to see it Private collection (Bonhams, The Marine Sale, 24 April 2024)
Medium Watercolour heightened with white on board
Dixon catches the Oceanic just after leaving Liverpool off New Brighton, bound for New York, and captions the sheet Off New Brighton at lower left as if noting the moment from the shore. When she sailed on her maiden voyage in 1899 she was the largest ship in the world. The watercolour is long and narrow, 27 by 76.5 centimetres, made for a ship that was all length. It records the White Star Liverpool service at its proudest, before the company opened its Southampton route in 1907.
The real ship Built by Harland and Wolff at Belfast for the White Star Line, Oceanic sailed on her maiden voyage on 6 September 1899 and was the largest ship in the world until 1901. Commissioned as an armed merchant cruiser on 8 August 1914, she was wrecked off Foula in the Shetland Islands on 8 September 1914.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Drawing
Lusitania Named ship
Launch of Lusitania, c. 1906
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection (PAE2100)
Medium Grey wash with graphite
Wyllie looks up at the Lusitania from just off her starboard bow as she sits in her launching cradle at John Brown's yard, Clydebank, flags flying for the launch on 7 June 1906. Figures stand on the bow and a large crowd gathers in the foreground, dwarfed by the hull towering above them. Greenwich thinks Wyllie was presumably there. In a few strokes of grey wash he catches what the Clyde felt that day: a ship so big that the people who built her seem tiny at her feet.
The real ship Built by John Brown and Co. at Clydebank for Cunard and launched on 7 June 1906, Lusitania was torpedoed by a U-boat off the Old Head of Kinsale on 7 May 1915 with the loss of 1,198 of those on board.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Adriatic Named ship
SS 'Adriatic', the First White Star Liner to Come to Southampton Passing Down Cowes Roads, 31 May 1907
Artist George Washington Sandell (1852 to 1945)
Where to see it SeaCity Museum, Southampton (M328)
Medium Oil on canvas
The long title is the whole story: on 31 May 1907 the Adriatic passed down Cowes Roads as the first White Star liner to come to Southampton, where a few days later the company opened its brand-new express route to Cherbourg and New York. Sandell recorded the day for his port, which was about to become White Star's gateway to America. The Adriatic herself was the largest, fastest and most luxurious of the company's Big Four, and the first ocean liner with an indoor swimming pool and Turkish baths.
The real ship The fourth of White Star's 'Big Four', built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Adriatic was the largest, fastest and most luxurious of them and the first ocean liner with an indoor swimming pool and Turkish baths. She opened the new Southampton, Cherbourg and New York route in June 1907, moved to Liverpool in 1911, served as a troop transport from 1917 to 1919, and was broken up at Osaka in 1935.
Image: George Washington Sandell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Lusitania Named ship
Lusitania, 1907
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Bonhams, London, 7 October 2015)
Medium Oil on canvas
Norman Wilkinson painted the new Lusitania speeding past the Fastnet lighthouse, probably outward bound for New York on her maiden voyage in 1907. It is the liner as a symbol of national pride: the ship that won the Blue Riband that year and ended a decade of German dominance of the Atlantic crossing. Knowing her fate eight years later, torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale on the same southern coast of Ireland, gives the painting a weight its first viewers could not have felt.
The real ship Built by John Brown and Co. at Clydebank and launched on 7 June 1906, Lusitania was briefly the world's largest passenger ship and won the Blue Riband in 1907. On 7 May 1915 she was torpedoed by U-20 off the Old Head of Kinsale and sank in about 18 minutes, with the loss of 1,198 of the 1,960 people aboard.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Norman Wilkinson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Mauretania Named ship
The Steamship Mauretania in the Mersey, November 1907
Artist Frank Thomas Copnall
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3459)
Medium Oil on leathercloth
Greenwich acquired this painting as a picture of the Lusitania and only later recognised her sister: the ventilators, low on the Lusitania, are much more noticeable on the Mauretania, just as Copnall painted them. It probably shows her arriving on the Mersey for the first time on 7 November 1907, when she berthed at the Prince's Landing Stage before sailing on her maiden voyage to New York on 16 November. It is a first Liverpool sighting of the ship that would hold the Atlantic speed records for some twenty years.
The real ship Built for Cunard by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson at Wallsend on the Tyne and launched in 1906, Mauretania was the world's largest ship until 1910. She took the eastbound Blue Riband in December 1907 and held both speed records until 1929, served as a troopship and hospital ship in the First World War, and was scrapped at Rosyth in 1935.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Image: Frank Thomas Copnall, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Lusitania Named ship
The R.M.S. Lusitania under Full Steam, 1908
Artist Antonio Jacobsen (1850 to 1921)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Christie's, New York, 10 February 2004)
Medium Oil on canvas
Jacobsen, called the Audubon of Steam Vessels, painted more than 6,000 ship portraits from his home in West Hoboken, across the Hudson from Manhattan. Here, signed and dated 1908, a year after her maiden voyage, the Lusitania runs under full steam, the record-breaking Cunarder that had recaptured the Blue Riband from Germany. For American viewers she was a marvel of speed and comfort, and after 1915 her loss would help to turn American opinion against Germany.
The real ship Cunard's Lusitania, built by John Brown and Co. at Clydebank and launched in 1906, won the Blue Riband in 1907. She was sunk by the German submarine U-20 off the Old Head of Kinsale on 7 May 1915; 128 Americans were among the dead, and the sinking turned American opinion against Germany.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Antonio Jacobsen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
North River Steamboat (the Clermont) Named ship
Steamboat "Clermont", 1909
Artist Samuel Ward Stanton (1870 to 1912)
Where to see it New-York Historical Society, New York (1957.73)
Medium Oil on board
Stanton painted Robert Fulton's steamboat in 1909, a century after her first run, and the panel is inscribed 'Copyright, 1909 by Hudson River Day Line'. Given to the New-York Historical Society by the Steamship Historical Society of America, it is a reconstruction in the service of memory: the boat that on 17 August 1807 left New York with a complement of guests and reached Albany after 32 hours under way. She is widely regarded as the first vessel to show that steam could work for commercial transport on the water.
The real ship Built at Charles Browne's shipyard in New York in 1807 for Robert Fulton, with an engine by Boulton and Watt, she ran between New York City and Albany on the Hudson, then called the North River. The name Clermont, by which she is best known, first appeared in a biography of Fulton published in 1817.
Sources emuseum.nyhistory.org · Wikipedia
Image: Samuel Ward Stanton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Olympic Named ship
Ocean Liner 'Olympic', 1911
Artist Fred Pansing (1844 to 1912)
Where to see it New-York Historical Society, New York (1940.19)
Medium Oil on canvas
Fred Pansing painted the Olympic in 1911, the year she sailed on her maiden voyage as the largest liner in the world. The large canvas, five feet by seven, was given to the New-York Historical Society by the Cunard White Star Line, and belongs to New York's own record of the great liners that ended their Atlantic crossings in its harbour. A year later her sister would sail and never arrive; the Olympic went on for 24 years.
The real ship Lead ship of White Star's Olympic class, built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Olympic sailed on her maiden voyage from Southampton on 14 June 1911 and was the world's largest liner for two periods between 1910 and 1913. She served as a troopship in the First World War and was withdrawn in 1935 after 24 years of service.
Sources emuseum.nyhistory.org · Wikidata · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Titanic Named ship
SS 'Titanic', 1912
Artist George Washington Sandell (1852 to 1945)
Where to see it SeaCity Museum, Southampton (M334)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Titanic sailed from Southampton on her maiden voyage, and Southampton keeps this portrait of her, painted by Sandell in 1912, in its SeaCity Museum. Sandell also painted the Adriatic coming to Southampton in 1907 as the first White Star liner to use the port; together the two canvases span the short first chapter of White Star's express service from the city. Seen in the city that sent her out, a plain portrait of the ship becomes a memorial.
The real ship Built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line, the second of three Olympic-class liners, Titanic was the largest ship afloat when she entered service. She struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York and sank on 15 April 1912; of the 2,208 people aboard, about 1,500 died.
Image: George Washington Sandell, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Frederik VIII Named ship
SS Frederik VIII, 1913
Artist Christian Mølsted (1862 to 1930)
Medium Painting
Mølsted, a Danish marine painter from Dragør, shows the new Frederik VIII together with Kronborg Castle at Helsingør. When she entered service she was the largest passenger ship in Scandinavia, built at Stettin for the Scandinavian America Line's Copenhagen to New York route, with room for 1,261 passengers, 881 of them in steerage. The picture sets the old Denmark of the castle against the new ocean steamer that linked Copenhagen with America, and catches her in the year of her launch.
The real ship Built by AG Vulcan at Stettin and launched on 27 May 1913, 159.55 m long and 11,850 GRT, Frederik VIII sailed on her maiden voyage from Copenhagen to New York on 5 February 1914 and served the Scandinavian America Line until she was scrapped in 1936.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikidata · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Christian Mølsted, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Titanic Named ship
The Steamship Titanic, 1913
Artist Harry J. Jansen (Adrianus Johannes Jansen) (1863 to 1943)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC3667)
Medium Oil on canvas
Signed 'Harry J. Jansen / Antwerp 1913', this is a portrait of a ship the painter could never have seen. Arie Jansen was a pierhead painter who had run a café on the Rotterdam waterfront and sold ship portraits to the seamen and shipping people who came in; his British clients called him Harry. He painted almost only North Sea ships, above all railway ferries. Here he shows the Titanic under way with an iceberg to the left, a year after she was lost, and Greenwich notes that it is far from accurate in many technical respects. Two similar Titanic pictures by him are known, one dated 1918.
The real ship Built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line, Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York and sank on 15 April 1912.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Harry J. Jansen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Britannic Named ship
White Star Liner 'Britannic', 1914
Artist Charles Dixon (1872 to 1934)
Where to see it Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra (HOYFM.1405.2000)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dixon painted the Britannic in 1914, the year she was launched at Belfast, as the White Star liner she was meant to be. She never entered passenger service. The youngest of the three Olympic-class sisters, redesigned after the loss of the Titanic with a double hull along her engine and boiler rooms, she became a hospital ship and sank in the Aegean in 1916. Kept in Northern Ireland, where she was built, this signed canvas in its ornate gilt frame preserves a White Star Britannic that existed only on paper and in paint.
The real ship Launched by Harland and Wolff in Belfast on 26 February 1914 and redesigned after the loss of the Titanic with a double hull along her engine and boiler rooms, Britannic never entered passenger service; from December 1915 she worked as a hospital ship between Britain and the Dardanelles. She struck a mine near Kea in the Aegean on 21 November 1916 and sank in 55 minutes; 30 of the 1,066 people aboard died.
Sources collections.nationalmuseumsni.org · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Drawing
Aquitania and Mauretania Named ship
The Big Liners, Aquitania and Mauretania in Use as Transports, 4.15pm, July 18th 1915
Artist Herbert William Hillier
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 4390)
Medium Pencil on lined paper
Two of Cunard's great liners lie together at Mudros in July 1915, four funnels apiece, with transports, battleships and cruisers on either side. Hillier drew them in pencil on a sheet of lined paper and covered it with notes, the way a man records what he can hardly believe he is seeing. The Imperial War Museums keep it as a document of the Gallipoli campaign, but it is also a rare meeting of Cunard's express liners in wartime service, far from New York and Liverpool.
The real ship Aquitania, built by John Brown and Company at Clydebank and launched on 21 April 1913, was converted in the First World War to an armed merchant cruiser, then a troopship, and served as a hospital ship in the Dardanelles campaign; she was the last four-funnelled passenger ship when scrapped after 1950. Mauretania, her Cunard fleet mate, served as a troopship at Gallipoli and then as a hospital ship.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Image: Herbert William Hillier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Drawing
Mauretania Named ship
'Mauretania', Leaving Mudros for England, 7pm, July 23rd 1915
Artist Herbert William Hillier
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 4406)
Medium Watercolour and pencil on paper
The record-breaker of the Atlantic appears here in the distance, sailing out through the entrance of Mudros Bay on the island of Lemnos in July 1915, smoke rising from her funnels, with several ships moored in the foreground and the hilly coast framing the view. The Imperial War Museums file the sheet under Gallipoli and the Dardanelles, and under the wounded and convalescence: that summer Mauretania was serving as a troopship in the campaign. Hillier notes the exact hour, 7 pm, as a diarist would. The glamour of the liner is gone; what remains is a ship doing her duty.
The real ship Cunard's Mauretania, built by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson at Wallsend on the Tyne and launched in 1906, held the Atlantic speed records for about twenty years. In 1915 she served as a troopship in the Gallipoli campaign and then as a hospital ship; she returned to Cunard livery in 1919 and was scrapped at Rosyth in 1935.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Image: Herbert William Hillier, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Drawing
Lusitania Named ship
'The Track of the "Lusitania"', 1915 to 1919
Artist William Lionel Wyllie (1851 to 1931)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Caird Collection (PAF1553)
Medium Watercolour
Wyllie does not show the ship at all, only what she left behind. On a calm evening sea a distant black pall of smoke hangs where the Lusitania went down, and a drifting track of wreckage and people in the water streams towards us while four of her lifeboats pick up survivors. Greenwich calls it a carefully composed view. The attack on an unarmed passenger ship was regarded in Britain and the United States as an atrocity, as the drawing implies, and it was reproduced in colour in Wyllie's More Sea Fights of the Great War in 1919. The absence of the ship is the whole point.
The real ship Cunard's Lusitania was torpedoed by a U-boat off the Old Head of Kinsale, southern Ireland, on the afternoon of 7 May 1915 while heading to Britain from New York, and went down in 18 minutes with the loss of 1,198 of those on board. The sinking was used to great effect in bringing the United States into the war in 1917.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich
Image: William Lionel Wyllie, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Paris Named ship
Paquebot "Paris", 1921 to 1922
Artist Charles Demuth (1883 to 1935)
Where to see it Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio (1931.139)
Medium Oil on canvas
Demuth made sketches of the deck and funnels of the French Line's Paris on a voyage back to the United States from Europe, and they became this painting. He had spent years in the Paris avant-garde and kept aspects of Cubism in his work after coming home, and it shows: a red and black funnel, a white ventilator and the stays are turned into clean, flat geometry. Where earlier painters showed a liner from the quay, Demuth stands on board, among the machinery of travel itself. The Paris had been completed only in 1921, then the largest liner under the French flag.
The real ship Built for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique at Saint-Nazaire, the Paris was laid down in 1913, launched in 1916 and completed only in 1921 because of the First World War; at 34,569 tons she was then the largest liner under the French flag.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Steam, liners and shipyards · Drawing
Sailing vessels and a steamer in Swinemünde harbour Unnamed
Moonlit Night in the Harbour of Swinemünde (Mondnacht im Hafen von Swinemünde), 1922
Artist Willy Stöwer (1864 to 1931)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Watercolour on cardboard
By 1922 the Kaiser had abdicated and the German fleet had declined, and with them went the great commissions of Stöwer's career; without imperial favour he found it hard to make a living. Stöwer, born at Wolgast on the Pomeranian coast, turns here to a quiet night in the harbour of Swinemünde: a small sailing vessel and a tall square-rigger moored by the quay, a steamer lying out in the harbour, and a rowing boat crossing the silver track of the moon. The drama of his battle pictures is gone; what remains is a Baltic port at night.
The vessels Swinemünde, today Świnoujście, was a Baltic port; the picture shows sailing vessels at the quay and a steamer in the harbour, none of them named.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (DE)
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Odin Named ship
The Steamer Odin, II, 1927
Artist Lyonel Feininger (1871 to 1956)
Where to see it Museum of Modern Art, New York (751.1943)
Medium Oil on canvas
A steamer called Odin is the subject of this canvas, which the Museum of Modern Art acquired in 1943. Feininger was born in New York, trained in Hamburg, Berlin and Paris, and built his art from prismatically broken, overlapping forms in translucent colour, with the sea among his great themes. Here a working steamer becomes a study in light, hull, smoke, water and sky sharing the same luminous planes. Set beside the exact ship portraits of the nineteenth century, it shows how far the steamship had travelled as a subject for painters.
The real ship A steamer named Odin, as the title records; her particulars are not given by the museum.
Sources MoMA · Wikipedia · Wikidata
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Unknown photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Steam, liners and shipyards · Print
Normandie Named ship
Normandie, 1935
Artist Cassandre (Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron) (1901 to 1968)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (E.648-2017)
Medium Colour lithograph on paper, backed on cotton
The V&A calls this poster the single best-known image of the Normandie. Cassandre shows the liner in a simple, symmetrical frontal view, her looming prow in black, white and red rising over a green sea under a blue sky, and the museum notes how that view conveys at once her gigantic scale and streamlined elegance. It was designed for the French Line in 1935, the year the ship entered service. The V&A's copy came from the estate of René Bouvard, an illustrator for the company, who according to his daughter was given it by Cassandre himself.
“the single best-known image of the Normandie ocean liner”
The real ship Built at Saint-Nazaire for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, Normandie entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat and held the Blue Riband at several points, with Queen Mary her main rival. Seized in New York in the Second World War and renamed USS Lafayette, she caught fire and capsized at Pier 88 in 1942 and was scrapped in 1946.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, where the original is kept. Photo: Christopher Hilton, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Steam, liners and shipyards · Drawing
HMS Illustrious Named ship
HMS Illustrious Entering the Basin at John Brown's Shipyard, Clydebank, 1940
Artist Muirhead Bone (1876 to 1953)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 1371)
Medium Chalk and ink on paper
Muirhead Bone, born in Partick on the Clyde and a war artist in both world wars, was an active member of the War Artists Advisory Committee when he made this drawing in 1940. The aircraft carrier Illustrious is guided by three tugs into the basin at John Brown's, Clydebank, the yard that built the Lusitania, the Aquitania and the Queen Mary, while another warship lies moored alongside. In chalk and ink he gives the flat-topped giant and the little tugs the same urgency: the Clyde at war, working on the ships that would fight it.
The real ship HMS Illustrious was the lead ship of her class of Royal Navy aircraft carriers; in late 1940 her aircraft sank one Italian battleship and badly damaged two others at Taranto, and in January 1941 she was hit repeatedly by dive bombers and repaired in the United States.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Ships building at Lithgows' Kingston Yard, Port Glasgow Unnamed
Shipbuilding on the Clyde: Burners, 1940
Artist Stanley Spencer (1891 to 1959)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 432-4)
Medium Oil on canvas (three canvases)
Commissioned by the War Artists Advisory Committee on 6 June 1940 to record the shipbuilding industry, Spencer based Burners on drawings he had made that May at Lithgows' yards in Port Glasgow. The burners cut steel plates with oxy-acetylene torches along chalk lines the machines could not follow; many were young men of sixteen to twenty, and one, top right, has removed his goggles to mop his brow. Burners was the first of the series, painted that summer at the White Hart Inn in Leonard Stanley and shown at the National Gallery in October 1940. The ship is present only as plates, flame and bodies bent to the work.
“In this burners painting I have treated the burners as a series of decorative figures because of the interesting variety of positions they naturally assume.”
The vessels Lithgows' Kingston Yard at Port Glasgow, where Spencer drew, built ships throughout the war; its burners cut the steel plates for the hulls with oxy-acetylene torches.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Steel masts and crow's nests for ships building at Lithgows, Port Glasgow Unnamed
Shipbuilding on the Clyde: Riveters, 1941
Artist Stanley Spencer (1891 to 1959)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 1375)
Medium Oil on canvas
Almost six metres long, Riveters reads like a frieze of the whole yard: men painting two finished crow's nests against corrosion, a gang lining up rivet holes in hollow steel masts, the heater boy dropping a hot rivet into place while the holder on crouches inside the mast and the riveter hammers it flat, and foremen in bowler hats studying a plan. Spencer admired those foremen, their overcoats flapping open as they walked the yard. He wanted each panel to run into the next, like wandering among the varied happenings of the shipyard itself.
“The workmen are the colour of iron, somewhat rusty colour.”
The vessels Steel masts and crow's nests were built in the yard at Lithgows' Kingston Yard, Port Glasgow, riveted by gangs of heater boy, holder on and riveter, as the IWM describes.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Image: Stanley Spencer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Double bottom of a ship under construction at Lithgows, Port Glasgow Unnamed
Shipbuilding on the Clyde: Welders, 1941
Artist Stanley Spencer (1891 to 1959)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 924-6)
Medium Oil on canvas (three panels)
Welders work inside the box sections of a ship's double bottom, lying on their sides and crouching in the cells of steel, while men carry heavy angled plates and two boys toast bread over a brazier. Welding was still new, replacing riveting because it was quicker, and the prefabricated sections these men joined went down to the building berth to become hulls. Second from left, Spencer painted himself, watching a welder through the mask held away from his face: the IWM reads it as a sign that he saw himself not as a detached observer but as part of the war effort.
The vessels Welded prefabricated sections were joined in the yard at Lithgows, Port Glasgow, before going down to the building berth to become part of a hull.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Keel shoe plate of a ship building at Lithgows, Port Glasgow Unnamed
Shipbuilding on the Clyde: Bending the Keel Plate, 1943
Artist Stanley Spencer (1891 to 1959)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 3106)
Medium Oil on canvas
At the centre of this long panel a red-hot shoe plate, just out of the furnace, lies in its cradle while men sweep it clean and hammer it into shape; around it others steer a sheet of steel hanging from a crane, prepare a trolley burner and carry a girder. First called The Shoe Plate, it gave Spencer so much trouble that he almost abandoned it, and he was never happy with it. Yet it holds the most elemental moment of all: the shaping of the keel, the backbone on which the whole ship would be built.
“to where the shoeplate in its cradle is being beaten into shape”
The vessels The shoe plate, part of the keel of a ship under construction at Lithgows' Kingston Yard, Port Glasgow, was heated in the furnace and beaten into shape in its cradle.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Image: Stanley Spencer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Steam, liners and shipyards · Painting
Frames for ships building at Lithgows, Port Glasgow Unnamed
Shipbuilding on the Clyde: The Furnaces, 1946
Artist Stanley Spencer (1891 to 1959)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 5781)
Medium Oil on canvas
Furnace men drag a red-hot steel section from the furnace across a perforated floor, while the iron dogs that will pin the template for bending lie in the foreground. It was the last of the series, finished in early 1946 from a study of May 1940, after Muirhead Bone pressed Spencer for a central panel before the war artists' committee was wound up. Years earlier Spencer had written that the furnace scene was big and important but not enough: love and passion were the only things he wished to express. The heat of the furnace becomes something close to worship of work.
“Religion as I mean it is implicit in everything as a heaven passing through everything”
The vessels At Lithgows, Port Glasgow, steel sections were heated in the furnaces and then bent to shape around templates pinned into perforated floors, as the IWM describes.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Image: Stanley Spencer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A sailing boat drawn up on the shore at Saint-Tropez Unnamed
Luxe, Calme et Volupté, 1904
Artist Henri Matisse (1869 to 1954)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Medium Oil on canvas
Matisse painted this in 1904 after a summer at Saint-Tropez working beside the Neo-Impressionists Signac and Cross, and it is considered the starting point of Fauvism. Bathers picnic on the shore of the bay; beside them a small boat rests with its mast rising like a stroke of colour, the one upright that ties earth, sea and sky together. The title comes from Baudelaire's poem L'Invitation au voyage, an invitation to a voyage, so the boat quietly carries the whole idea of the picture. Signac bought it, and Raoul Dufy, seeing it at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905, turned towards Fauvism.
The vessels A small sailing boat drawn up on the shore of the bay; the painting does not identify her.
Sources Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Fishing boats in the harbour of Collioure Unnamed
Boats in the Harbour of Collioure (Bateaux dans le port de Collioure), 1905
Artist André Derain (1880 to 1954)
Where to see it Gabriele and Werner Merzbacher Collection, on permanent loan to the Kunsthaus Zürich (MB 0018)
Medium Oil on canvas
Derain and his older friend Matisse spent the summer of 1905 at Collioure in the Pyrénées-Orientales, painting the same boats and beaches, and when their pictures were shown at the Salon d'Automne that autumn a critic called them fauves, wild beasts. Here the fishing boats lie drawn up on a red beach and moored in the bay, fishermen among them, all laid down in unmixed reds, blues, yellows and greens. Gauguin's saturated colour strongly influenced Derain at Collioure that year. The boats were the everyday furniture of a fishing town; in his hands they became the manifesto of a new way of seeing.
The vessels Small sailing fishing boats of Collioure, drawn up on the beach and moored in the bay; none is identified.
Sources collection.kunsthaus.ch · Wikimedia Commons · Wikidata · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Fishing and sailing boats in the harbour of Collioure Unnamed
The Open Window, Collioure, 1905
Artist Henri Matisse (1869 to 1954)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (Collection of Mrs. and Mr. John Hay Whitney)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1905 Matisse and Derain worked together at Collioure in the Pyrénées-Orientales, and when their pictures were shown at the Salon d'Automne that year the critic Louis Vauxcelles called the painters fauves, wild beasts. This is the view from Matisse's window over the harbour: pots of flowers, open doors, and beyond them sailing boats with tall masts on water painted in pinks and blues. The boats are the reason to look out, small bright shapes rocking in a harbour that has become pure colour.
The vessels Sailing boats in the harbour of Collioure, seen from above; the painting does not identify them.
Sources Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Steamers and sailing barges in the Pool of London Unnamed
The Pool of London, 1906
Artist André Derain (1880 to 1954)
Where to see it Tate, London (N06030)
Medium Oil on canvas
The dealer Ambroise Vollard commissioned Derain to paint a series of views of London, and in 1906 he painted the Pool of London with the silhouette of Tower Bridge across the Thames behind. Instead of fog, he brought Fauve colour: a steamer with a red funnel, barges and rowing boats crowd the foreground, and the working river becomes blocks of blue, red, orange and green. The ships jostle on water that is anything but grey. It is the port of London seen by a Frenchman who refused to paint it sad.
The vessels Steamers, barges and small boats working in the Pool of London below Tower Bridge; none is identified.
Sources Tate · Wikipedia (FR)
Twentieth-century art · Painting
River barges and steamers in Lübeck harbour Unnamed
The Harbour in Lübeck, 1907
Artist Edvard Munch (1863 to 1944)
Where to see it Kunsthaus Zürich (1946/0002)
Medium Oil on canvas
Munch knew Lübeck through the collector Max Linde, one of his patrons, in whose garden there he painted Rodin's Thinker in 1907. That year he signed this view of the harbour on the Trave, looking down over a rooftop onto the water. He reduces the scene to bold strokes of colour: long dark-hulled vessels and a small steamer moored along the quay, a yellow boat in the foreground, trees and houses beyond. The vessels become blocks of colour, and a working port turns into a direct, vivid picture. It passed through the Berlin dealer Paul Cassirer to the collector Curt Glaser before reaching Zurich.
The vessels Unnamed river craft and a small steamer of the kind that worked the Trave at Lübeck; the painting does not identify them.
Sources collection.kunsthaus.ch · Wikimedia Commons · Wikidata · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A harbour launch in the port of Hamburg Unnamed
Vedette in Hamburg (Vedette à Hambourg), 1909
Artist Albert Marquet (1875 to 1947)
Where to see it Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (1983.7.9)
Medium Oil on canvas
Marquet spent the first months of 1909 in Hamburg, and cold, rain and snow did not stop him painting and drawing the great port. A vedette is a small harbour launch, and here one, green-hulled with a black funnel, crosses the broad ochre water while tugs trail smoke behind her and sailing ships lie moored beyond. In the corner the bow of a boat flies the black, white and red flag of the German Empire. Marquet's gift was to simplify: a few dark outlines, restrained colour and a mastery of grey northern light.
The vessels A small harbour launch working among the tugs and sailing ships of Hamburg; none is identified.
Sources artgallery.yale.edu · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (FR)
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A sailing boat under full sail Unnamed
Sailing, 1911
Artist Edward Hopper (1882 to 1967)
Where to see it Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Medium Oil on canvas
This is the first painting Hopper ever sold. It was shown at the Armory Show in 1913 and bought by the businessman Thomas F. Vietor for 250 dollars, and Hopper had painted it over an earlier self-portrait. A small sailing boat drives hard across dark water, her big sails full, the crew huddled low under the boom. Hopper was born in Nyack, a yacht-building centre on the Hudson, and the boat carries both that boyhood river and a young painter's hopes.
The vessels A small two-masted sailing boat, not identified; Hopper grew up in Nyack, a yacht-building centre on the Hudson River.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Painting
RMS Titanic Named ship
Sinking of the Titanic (Der Untergang der Titanic), 1912 to 1913
Artist Max Beckmann (1884 to 1950)
Where to see it Saint Louis Art Museum (840:1983)
Medium Oil on canvas
The young Beckmann answered the disaster of April 1912 with a vast history painting in the manner of nineteenth-century French masters, more than three metres wide. The museum notes that he focused not on the ship but on her lifeboats, placing the distant, brightly lit liner against an iron-red night sky. In the foreground boats list or overturn, and one is full of women and children, a passenger still in her violet evening gown and earrings. Green and blue colouring and faces in the water give it the quality of a nightmare. The ship is small and far away; the human cost is close.
“focused on the lifeboats of the Titanic while placing the distant, brightly lit liner against an iron-red night sky”
The real ship Titanic, the world's largest luxury liner, sank off the coast of Newfoundland on 15 April 1912; of the 2,200 people aboard, 1,507 died.
Sources slam.org · Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
Nile river steamers serving as hospital boats Unnamed
Nile Steamers Converted into Hospital Boats, c. 1915 to 1918
Artist Frank Henry Mason (1875 to 1965)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 2843)
Medium Watercolour on paper
A long, narrow watercolour: a large river steamer painted white with big red crosses passes along a river or canal as a hospital ship, two more following in the distance, and on the left a small island with dhows. Mason served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the war, commanding a motor launch in the North Sea and in Egypt, and here he shows Nile steamers turned to the care of the wounded. It is a gentle picture of war, white hulls gliding past the sails of the old river world.
The vessels Nile river steamers were converted during the First World War to serve as hospital boats, painted white with large red crosses; the individual boats are not identified.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
E-class submarines at Harwich Unnamed
British Mine Laying Submarines, Harwich, 1917
Artist John Lavery (1856 to 1941)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (IWM ART 1259)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lavery was appointed an official artist in the First World War, but ill health and a car crash in a Zeppelin raid kept him from the front, and he stayed in Britain painting boats, aeroplanes and airships. At Harwich in 1917 he found five submarines moored side by side, long dark hulls and conning towers in the pale light, one lettered E51. A sailor in grey overalls paints the foremost boat, patches of red primer on her side, while a line of ships waits in the haze beyond. The deadly boats become a quiet study of harbour routine.
The vessels The E class was the backbone of the Royal Navy's submarine fleet throughout the First World War; later boats displaced 662 tons on the surface and carried a 12-pounder gun and five torpedo tubes, and the last were withdrawn by 1922.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
HMS King Alfred Named ship
Dazzle Design for HMS King Alfred (HMS Order No. 32, port side), 1917
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971) and the Dazzle Section
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM DAZ 0029 2)
Medium Pencil and gouache on paper
This is dazzle at the source: a working design drawn and painted in 1917 by the Dazzle Section, the unit Wilkinson ran in basement studios at the Royal Academy, where artists devised schemes, tested them on models and prepared construction diagrams. It shows the port side of the armoured cruiser King Alfred, with two details of her gun turrets set above, every word hand-lettered, and it is signed by L. E. Crabbe and by Norman Wilkinson, Lieutenant RNVR. It is half engineering drawing, half modernist abstraction.
The real ship King Alfred was one of four Drake-class armoured cruisers built around 1900, flagship of the China Station from 1906 to 1910. In the First World War she served with the Grand Fleet and on convoy escort, survived a torpedo hit in 1918, and was sold for scrap in 1920.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A convoy of dazzle-painted ships by moonlight Unnamed
Dazzled Ships at Night, 1917 to 1918
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 4029)
Medium Oil on canvas
The inventor of dazzle painted his own invention at work. A convoy crosses the sea at night: two vessels in the distance on the left, two more in the centre, and the eye struggles to decide where one ship ends and the next begins. The Imperial War Museum's label explains that dazzle was particularly effective in moonlight, making it hard to judge the shape of a vessel, the number of ships and the direction they are moving in. Wilkinson turns a technical claim into a nocturne.
“particularly effective in moonlight”
The vessels Wilkinson proposed dazzle in 1917, the year German submarines sank nearly eight British ships a day in April; his unit at the Royal Academy devised schemes that were painted onto thousands of Allied ships.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Image: Norman Wilkinson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
USS Leonidas Named ship
American Submarine Chasers: Depot Ship Leonidas (USA) Leaving Malta, c. 1918
Artist Frank Henry Mason (1875 to 1965)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 3116)
Medium Watercolour on paper
In 1918 the United States sent small submarine chasers to the Mediterranean, with the old collier and survey ship Leonidas converted to tend them. Mason, who signed this sheet at Malta, catches her leaving harbour past the fortifications, one ship leaving, two following, a larger ship at anchor behind. It is a quiet record of an alliance at sea: an American tender, built at Sunderland twenty years earlier, steaming out of a British island harbour to support the craft guarding the Allied sea lanes against submarines.
The real ship Built as Elizabeth Holland by S. P. Austin and Son at Sunderland in 1897 to 1898, she was bought by the US Navy in 1898 and served as collier, survey ship and, from 1918, tender to two squadrons of submarine chasers, arriving at Corfu on 8 June 1918.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
A K-class submarine in dazzle camouflage Unnamed
A Camouflaged K Submarine Passing under a Bridge, 1918
Artist Charles Pears (1873 to 1958)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 637)
Medium Watercolour on toned paper
Pears dated this watercolour January 1918, and it shows one of the strangest warships ever built, a steam-driven submarine, wearing camouflage as it passes under a bridge. The K class were meant to keep up with the battle fleet on the surface, and so many were involved in accidents that they were nicknamed the Kalamity class. Pears gives the long, low hull its patterned coat, a submarine made as hard to read as any dazzle-painted merchantman.
The vessels The K class, designed in 1913, were large steam-propelled submarines intended to operate with the Grand Fleet. Of eighteen built, none was lost to the enemy, but six sank in accidents with significant loss of life.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Print
Dazzle-painted ships in dry dock Unnamed
Camouflaged Ships in Dry Dock ('Dazzle Ships'), 1918
Artist Edward Wadsworth (1889 to 1949)
Where to see it Victoria and Albert Museum, London (E.4139-1920)
Medium Woodcut on Japan paper
The V&A calls Wadsworth one of the key figures of Vorticism, and counts this print among a group inspired by the wartime months he and fellow artists spent at Bristol and Liverpool pioneering painted camouflage. A small upright woodcut, about 20 by 14 centimetres, it shares its subject with the large painting Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool that he was commissioned to paint towards the end of the war. The museum's proof, on Japan paper, is signed in pencil and dated 1918. In a few square inches it shows a modernist style turned into a wartime tool.
The vessels Dazzle was painted on ships at British ports including Liverpool and Bristol, following designs from Wilkinson's unit at the Royal Academy; the ships in this print are not identified.
Sources V&A · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Edward Wadsworth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Painting
HMS Princess Royal with the First Canadian Contingent convoy Named ship
Canada's Answer, 1918
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it Canadian War Museum, Ottawa (CWM 19710261-0791)
Medium Oil on canvas
The man who invented dazzle camouflage painted this huge canvas for the Canadian War Memorials: the sailing of Canada's First Contingent, over 31,000 soldiers, to England. The liners had taken men, horses and equipment aboard at Quebec City and formed up with British warships in the Bay of Gaspé, and on the way they were joined by one of the Royal Navy's largest battlecruisers, Princess Royal. Wilkinson puts her in the foreground, grey and enormous, bow wave rising, so that the whole convoy seems to move under her protection. The title says the rest: a nation's reply, told as a line of ships.
The real ship Princess Royal was the second of the two Lion-class battlecruisers, completed in 1913. She fought at Heligoland Bight, Dogger Bank and Jutland, and was sold for scrap in 1922 under the Washington Naval Treaty.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Norman Wilkinson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A North Sea convoy seen from the airship NS 7 Unnamed
A Convoy, North Sea, 1918. From NS 7
Artist John Lavery (1856 to 1941)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 1257)
Medium Oil on canvas
Lavery, appointed an official artist in the First World War, stayed in Britain and mostly painted boats, aeroplanes and airships. Here we look down from the airship NS 7 past two airmen at the rail, with a third walking out onto the rigging, to a convoy far below on the North Sea, another airship in the distance. The canvas is almost two metres wide, and the ships are tiny: a picture of how the sea war looked to the men watching over it from the sky, and of how small the merchantmen were in all that water.
The vessels A North Sea convoy of 1918 with its escort, watched from the air by airships of the Royal Naval Air Service; the ships are not identified.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A convoy of dazzle-painted ships in the English Channel Unnamed
A Convoy of Dazzled Ships in the Channel, 1918
Artist Norman Wilkinson (1878 to 1971)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 4030)
Medium Oil on canvas
The daylight companion to Dazzled Ships at Night. By day, the museum notes, the ships are obviously visible; dazzle never aimed to hide them. But from a distance the patterns still confuse the number and outline of the vessels in the convoy, and that was the point: an enemy commander who misjudged a ship's course and speed would take up a poor firing position. Wilkinson, a marine painter before he was a camoufleur, paints a convoy as an argument, a canvas one and a half metres wide proving his idea in open water.
The vessels Merchant convoys crossed the Channel under naval escort from 1917; each ship's dazzle pattern was unique so that classes of ships could not be recognised.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Norman Wilkinson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
A British convoy of dazzle-painted merchant ships Unnamed
Convoy of Dazzle-Painted Ships, c. 1918
Artist John Everett (1876 to 1949)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (PAI7000)
Medium Pastel
Everett's summer of 1918 in the docks, allowed by the Ministry of Information after years when security rules kept him from sketching outdoors, produced not only ship portraits but this broad pastel of a British convoy, almost nine tenths of a metre wide. Pastel suits dazzle: chalky colour sits on the paper as flatly as the paint sat on the hulls. Royal Museums Greenwich count his dazzle pictures among his most daring works for their composition and modernity, and they were first shown at the Goupil Gallery in London in November 1918.
The vessels British convoys of 1917 and 1918 gathered merchant ships under naval escort against U-boat attack; each ship wore its own dazzle pattern. The ships here are not identified.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Coronado Named ship
A Dazzle Ship (Coronado), c. 1918
Artist John Everett (1876 to 1949)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC4085)
Medium Oil on paper
Wartime security stopped Everett sketching outdoors until the spring of 1918, when the Ministry of Information asked him to record the London river. With a permit in his pocket he spent every day of that summer in the docks, and what drew him most were the ships covered in dazzle. The museum records this one as the Coronado, built in 1915. Royal Museums Greenwich count his dazzle pictures among his most daring works for their composition and modernity, and they were first shown at the Goupil Gallery in November 1918, the month the war ended.
“Everett's dazzle pictures are among his most daring works for their sense of composition and modernity.”
The real ship Coronado was a steamer built in 1915, according to the museum record; like thousands of British merchant ships she was dazzle-painted against U-boat attack. Her later career is not recorded.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Shuna Named ship
A Dazzle Ship (Shuna), 1918
Artist John Everett (1876 to 1949)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC4084)
Medium Oil on cardboard
In the summer of 1918, with a permit from the Ministry of Information, Everett spent every day in the London docks and found there the most modern subject of his career. The Shuna, a steamer built in 1915, lies covered in the dazzle camouflage Norman Wilkinson had developed the year before against the U-boats. Painted in oil on cardboard, the picture treats the camouflage as the real subject: patterns meant to break up a hull at sea become, in the stillness of a dock, a piece of bold design. Everett bequeathed his dazzle paintings to the National Maritime Museum.
The real ship Shuna was a steamer built in 1915, according to the museum record; she wore dazzle camouflage in 1918. Her later career is not recorded.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
HMS Iron Duke Named ship
HMS Iron Duke under Snow, 1918
Artist Charles Pears (1873 to 1958)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 643)
Medium Watercolour and chalk on paper
Charles Pears, best known as a marine painter and later the first elected President of the Royal Society of Marine Artists, made this sheet for the Imperial War Museum's naval section and inscribed it Rosyth, January 1918. His subject is Iron Duke, flagship of the Grand Fleet through the war, including at Jutland. He draws her bow on, pushing through a grey-green sea with smoke streaming aft, her bridge and turrets touched with white. A small sheet on brown paper, it carries the cold of a winter spent at sea.
The real ship Iron Duke was laid down at Portsmouth Dockyard on 12 January 1912 and commissioned in March 1914 as flagship of the Home Fleet. She served as flagship of the Grand Fleet during the First World War, including at the Battle of Jutland, and after the war as flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Print
Dazzle-painted ships in the port of Liverpool Unnamed
Liverpool Shipping, 1918
Artist Edward Wadsworth (1889 to 1949)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.470.12)
Medium Woodcut on Japanese paper
Wadsworth came back to England in 1917 to work on Norman Wilkinson's dazzle scheme, based mainly at Liverpool, and while he was there he made drawings and woodcuts of the camouflaged ships. The woodcut suited the subject: hard-edged shapes cut into the block, patterns that break up a form as dazzle broke up a hull at sea. All his Vorticist oil paintings from 1914 to 1918 are lost, so prints like this are how his boldest work is known. Here art and camouflage come close to being the same act.
The vessels Dazzle patterns were painted on thousands of Allied merchant ships from 1917 to make it hard for an enemy to judge their range, speed and heading; Wadsworth supervised the camouflaging of more than 2,000 ships.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
SS Sardinian Named ship
S.S. Sardinian, 1918
Artist John Everett (1876 to 1949)
Where to see it Canadian War Museum, Ottawa (CWM 19710261-0141)
Medium Tempera on paper
Everett shows the old Allan Line steamer Sardinian in First World War dazzle, lying at a quay among cranes, bollards and sacks of cargo. The Canadian War Museum reminds us that she had first carried Canadians to war in South Africa in 1899; now her white hull is slashed with black and blue shapes to spoil a submarine's aim. The picture is a ship portrait turned inside out: the vessel is drawn with care, but her outline is deliberately confused. It records a veteran merchant ship more than forty years after her launch, still at work in a second war.
The real ship Built by Robert Steele and Co. at Greenock for the Allan Line and launched on 3 June 1874, Sardinian sailed mostly from Liverpool or Glasgow to Canada; she survived a coal bunker explosion and fire in 1878, carried Canadian troops to South Africa in 1899, and was scrapped at Bilbao in 1938.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
HMS Superb Named ship
HMS Superb, Flagship of the Commander in Chief, Mediterranean, Leading the British Fleet to Constantinople, November 1918
Artist Frank Henry Mason (1875 to 1965)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 2613)
Medium Oil on canvas
After the Armistice of Mudros ended the war with the Ottoman Empire, HMS Superb led an Allied squadron into Constantinople on 13 November 1918, and Frank Mason recorded the procession for the Imperial War Museum's Art Section. Mason had been a cadet on the school ship Conway and a marine engineer before he turned painter, and he knew how a line of warships should look. Superb, flagship of the Mediterranean, leads the fleet through coastal waters on a canvas nearly two metres wide. It is a picture of an ending, the ships arriving in peace.
The real ship Superb was one of three Bellerophon-class dreadnoughts, serving almost her whole career with the Home and Grand Fleets and fighting at Jutland in 1916. She became flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet in October 1918, was reduced to reserve in 1919, became a target ship in 1922 and was sold for scrap that year.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Print
RMS Aquitania Named ship
The Transport Aquitania, 1918 to 1919
Artist Arthur Lismer (1885 to 1969)
Where to see it Canadian War Museum, Ottawa (19710261-0928); impression also at the National Gallery of Canada (40745)
Medium Lithograph, ink on wove paper
In wartime Halifax, Lismer, principal of the Victoria School of Art and Design, was inspired by the shipping and naval activity of the port, above all by the dazzle-painted ships, their curved and zigzag patterns meant to mislead U-boats. His work came to the attention of Lord Beaverbrook, who arranged his commission as an official war artist. Here he draws the great Cunarder Aquitania in her wartime role as a transport. She looms bow on over the quay, tugs smoking alongside while men on the wharf haul on her lines. The liner built for luxury has become a machine of war.
The real ship Built by John Brown at Clydebank and launched on 21 April 1913, Aquitania served Cunard from 1914 to 1950; in the First World War she was an auxiliary cruiser, troop transport and hospital ship, and she was the last surviving four-funnelled ocean liner.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikidata · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Merchant ships forming a transatlantic convoy in Bedford Basin, Halifax Unnamed
Convoy in Bedford Basin, 1919
Artist Arthur Lismer (1885 to 1969)
Where to see it Canadian War Museum, Ottawa (19710261-0344)
Medium Oil on canvas
Nearly three metres long, this canvas shows merchant ships forming up in Bedford Basin, near Halifax, for a transatlantic convoy. Halifax was a vital base for the ships bringing food, supplies and people from North America to Britain and Europe, and after losses to U-boats mounted in 1917 the Allies banded merchant ships together under naval escort. Lismer turns that organisation of war into a basin full of dazzle stripes, smoke and bright water. The sea here feels busy and hopeful rather than grim.
The vessels Convoys were introduced in 1917 in response to growing losses to German submarines; merchant ships sailed together with escorting warships, which required careful organisation of arrivals and departures. Dazzle patterns were meant to help protect them from U-boat attack.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A dazzle-painted merchant ship in dry dock at Liverpool Unnamed
Dazzle-ships in Drydock at Liverpool, 1919
Artist Edward Wadsworth (1889 to 1949)
Where to see it National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Medium Oil on canvas
Wadsworth had been a Vorticist before the war, and in 1917 Norman Wilkinson brought him back from naval service at Mudros in the Aegean to help transfer dazzle designs onto real hulls, mainly at Liverpool. Towards the end of the war the Canadian War Memorials Fund commissioned this monumental canvas, some ten feet by twelve, shown in London, New York, Toronto and Montreal in 1919. The ship is freshly painted and high and dry, so the picture is less about the sea than about men, ropes and a hull turned into a moving abstract. It is the moment when modern art and naval camouflage became the same thing.
The vessels Dazzle schemes of clashing stripes and angles did not hide a ship but confused U-boat commanders about her type, direction and speed. Wadsworth supervised the camouflaging of over 2,000 ships during the First World War.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Edward Wadsworth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Print
HMCS Grilse Named ship
HMCS Grilse on Convoy Duty, 1919
Artist Arthur Lismer (1885 to 1969)
Where to see it Canadian War Museum, Ottawa (19710261-0357)
Medium Lithograph (ink on wove paper)
Lismer puts us on the deck of Grilse, looking forward along her long, narrow hull, one of her two 12-pounder guns in the foreground and smoke pouring from her funnel. She was a converted yacht, the Winchester, taken into service when Canada, with a weak navy, scrambled for ships and even asked civilians to donate their own. The print catches her destroyer-like shape and her speed as she escorts ships out to sea. It is a picture of improvisation: a pleasure boat doing a warship's job on the edge of the Atlantic.
The real ship Grilse was the yacht Winchester, converted and armed with two 12-pounder guns and a 14-inch torpedo tube; 61.5 metres long and capable of 32 knots, she was often called a torpedo boat. She patrolled the coast and escorted ships out of Halifax, Saint John and Sydney but could not cross the ocean.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Three ships whose courses cross at sea Unnamed
Marine, 1919
Artist Lyonel Feininger (1871 to 1956)
Where to see it Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg
Medium Painting
Feininger had a special relationship with ships, and seascapes run as a constant through his whole work; from 1908 to 1921 he spent his summers on the Baltic island of Usedom. This Marine was painted in 1919, the year Walter Gropius called him to Weimar as the first master of the new Bauhaus. In his typical manner it shows three different ships whose paths cross on the sea, broken into the prismatic, overlapping forms in translucent colour that made his name. In December 2022 the Germanisches Nationalmuseum acquired it, the first painting by Feininger to enter its collection.
The vessels Three different ships whose courses cross at sea; the painting does not identify them.
Sources Wikipedia (DE) · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, where the original is kept. Photo: Remi Mathis, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Painting
RMS Mauretania Named ship
Mauretania in Dazzle Paint, 1919
Artist Burnell Poole (1884 to 1933)
Where to see it Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool (1968.184.6)
Medium Oil on canvas
Poole, an American naval artist, photographed the work of US Navy shipyards during the First World War and in 1918 crossed to Britain as naval correspondent for Everybody's Magazine, painting the British fleet. Here the great Cunarder Mauretania, holder of the Blue Riband for twenty years, wears her wartime dazzle. As a troopship she carried around 35,000 American soldiers to Europe, and she escaped the U-boats through her high speed and the seamanship of her crew. The picture is now in the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool, the port from which she sailed on her maiden voyage.
The real ship Built by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson at Wallsend and launched in 1906, Mauretania took the eastbound Blue Riband in 1907 and the westbound in 1909, holding both for twenty years. She served as troopship and hospital ship in the First World War, returned to Cunard livery in February 1919, and was scrapped at Rosyth in 1935.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
RMS Olympic Named ship
Olympic with Returned Soldiers, 1919
Artist Arthur Lismer (1885 to 1969)
Where to see it Canadian War Museum, Ottawa (CWM 19710261-0001)
Medium Oil on board
In wartime Halifax Lismer was inspired by the port's shipping, and the dazzle-painted ships became his great wartime subject. This small oil on board, dated February 1919, is a study of the troopship Olympic, sister of the Titanic, returning to Halifax with Canadian soldiers home from the war. Her multicoloured dazzle, added in 1917 at the height of the U-boat threat, breaks up the great hull in bands of blue and white, and the busy dockyard of Canada's principal wartime naval base crowds around her. The whole picture reads as relief and homecoming.
The real ship Olympic was the lead ship of the White Star Line's Olympic class, in service from 1911 to 1935. As the troopship HMT Olympic she carried over 200,000 troops, rammed and sank the U-boat U-103 and earned the nickname Old Reliable; withdrawn in 1935, she was scrapped by 1939.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Print
A catboat under sail Unnamed
The Cat Boat, 1922
Artist Edward Hopper (1882 to 1967)
Where to see it The Art Institute of Chicago (1944.153)
Medium Etching on off-white wove paper
Before his paintings sold, Hopper made his name with etchings, and in 1923 he won two prizes for them, the Logan Prize of the Chicago Society of Etchers and the W. A. Bryan Prize. The Cat Boat belongs to this moment, a simple nautical scene among etchings that already carried his later themes. Hopper grew up in Nyack, a yacht-building town on the Hudson, and as a boy carved models of sailboats and dreamed of becoming a naval architect. Seventeen years later a heeling catboat would carry the figures of his painting Ground Swell.
The vessels A catboat is a small sailing boat; the one in Hopper's etching is not identified.
Sources Art Institute of Chicago · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Art Institute of Chicago, where the original is kept. Photo: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Sailing and fishing vessels moored in a harbour Unnamed
Seaport, 1923
Artist Edward Wadsworth (1889 to 1949)
Where to see it Tate, London (T00497)
Medium Tempera on canvas
After the war Wadsworth came into a fortune on his father's death, walked the south coast through Devon and Dorset, and took up tempera, the medium of the early Renaissance, which he used for the rest of his life. His tempera paintings of calm coastal towns and ports in Britain and France were first exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in 1923, the year of this picture, and The Times found in them an austere and unsentimental beauty. Here moored boats with red and dark hulls lie still in a harbour basin, every mast and line drawn hard and clear, a deliberate return to order after the war.
“an austere and unsentimental beauty”
The vessels The vessels are unidentified small sailing and fishing boats of the kind Wadsworth painted in British and French ports in the early 1920s.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Tate Britain, London. Photo: Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Boats and ships in the harbour of Genoa at night Unnamed
The Harbor of Genoa, 1927
Artist Max Beckmann (1884 to 1950)
Where to see it Saint Louis Art Museum (843:1983)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Saint Louis Art Museum calls this an atmospheric moonlit scene, a memory of the busy Italian port Beckmann had visited in 1926. He paints it from his balcony ledge, crowded with a vase of flowers, a stringed instrument and a chair draped with a jacket, so that we look past a traveller's belongings to the boats resting in the harbour and two yellow trains puffing into the station below. Near and far are combined in one long view, and the museum sees in it Beckmann's continuing interest in urban and industrial scenes: the port as a machine that never quite sleeps.
“atmospheric moonlit scene is a memory of the busy Italian port of Genoa”
The vessels Unnamed boats and ships at rest in the harbour of Genoa; the painting does not identify them.
Sources slam.org · Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A Breton fishing boat in harbour Unnamed
Boat in Harbour, Brittany, 1929
Artist Christopher Wood (1901 to 1930)
Where to see it Tate St Ives (T00489)
Medium Oil on board
Christopher Wood admired Alfred Wallis, whom he and Ben Nicholson met on a day trip to St Ives in August 1928, and the old sailor's directness marked his painting. Wood's finest works are considered to be those he painted in Brittany in 1929 and on a second trip there in 1930. He claimed that his mother's family were Cornish and that his love of the sea and of boats came from them. Here a fishing boat sits in a Breton harbour, painted with Wallis's flatness and a sophisticated sense of colour. Wood died in August 1930, aged twenty-nine, which makes these Breton boats feel like a farewell.
The vessels A sailing fishing boat of the Breton coast where Wood painted in 1929 and 1930; the boat is not identified.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Tate St Ives, where the original is kept. Photo: habiloid, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A fishing boat in Dieppe harbour Unnamed
A Fishing Boat in Dieppe Harbour, 1929
Artist Christopher Wood (1901 to 1930)
Where to see it Tate Britain, London (T07799)
Medium Oil on canvas
Wood painted this fishing boat at Dieppe in 1929, the year of his first Breton pictures, which are counted among his finest. She lies moored against the quay, nets hung from her mast, with the white cliffs and the tall houses of the town behind. Aberdeen Art Gallery holds a drawing of a fishing boat at Dieppe from the same period, showing how he worked from sketches into paint. Wood admired Alfred Wallis, and the boat is drawn with that clarity but set in colours of real sophistication. A year later the young painter was dead.
The vessels A sailing fishing boat of the Channel port of Dieppe, her nets hung to dry; the boat is not identified.
Sources Tate · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Christopher Wood; photo Sailko, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Print
SS L'Atlantique Named ship
L'Atlantique (poster), 1931
Artist A. M. Cassandre (1901 to 1968)
Medium Poster
Cassandre, best known for his travel posters, made this one in 1931 for L'Atlantique, which on her completion that year was the largest, fastest and most luxurious liner on the route between Europe and South America. It stands in the list of his notable posters beside Nord Express, Étoile du Nord and, later, Normandie. The image outlived the ship: in January 1933 a fire broke out off Guernsey, killed nineteen of her crew and gutted her, and she never sailed again. The poster keeps her as she was meant to be seen.
The real ship Built by Penhoët at Saint-Nazaire, launched on 15 April 1930 and completed on 7 September 1931, L'Atlantique was 223 metres long and built with a shallow draught for the Río de la Plata. She burned on 4 January 1933 and was broken up at Port Glasgow from 1936.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists.
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A ship painted from memory Unnamed
The Blue Ship, c. 1934
Artist Alfred Wallis (1855 to 1942)
Where to see it Tate St Ives (T00291)
Medium Oil on board on wood
Wallis took up painting at seventy, after his wife died, as he later told Ben Nicholson, for company. He painted mostly on cardboard torn from packing boxes, with the ship's paint he insisted on buying locally, ignored perspective and made each thing as big as it was important. Nicholson, who with Christopher Wood met him in 1928, said that to Wallis his paintings were never paintings but actual events. The Blue Ship is in the collection of Tate, whose St Ives gallery stands near the beach his grave overlooks. Here the ship itself is the event, set on the sea like a remembered fact.
“to Wallis, his paintings were never ‘paintings’ but actual events”
The vessels Wallis painted the world of sail and steam he had known, which was being replaced by vessels with diesel engines; the ship is a remembered type rather than a portrait of a named vessel.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Tate St Ives, where the original is kept. Photo: habiloid, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Racing yachts at Cowes Week off the Royal Yacht Squadron Unnamed
Regatta at Cowes, 1934
Artist Raoul Dufy (1877 to 1953)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (1970.17.30)
Medium Oil on canvas
Dufy was born in Le Havre, and after Matisse's Luxe, Calme et Volupté, seen at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905, directed him towards Fauvism, colour became his language. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he painted the races at Cowes several times, and the most famous of those pictures is this one in Washington. Cowes Week, held every August on the Solent since 1826, is one of the longest running regular regattas in the world. Dufy lets the yachts, flags and spectators dance, the whole regatta turned into a celebration of wind and colour.
The vessels Racing yachts at Cowes Week, held each August on the Solent between southern England and the Isle of Wight since 1826; the yachts are not identified.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Gallery of Art, Washington, where the original is kept. Photo: AgnosticPreachersKid, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A sloop reaching past a lighthouse on Cape Cod Unnamed
The Long Leg, 1935
Artist Edward Hopper (1882 to 1967)
Where to see it The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California (83.8.25)
Medium Oil on canvas
Hopper's seascapes fall into three groups: rocks, sea and beach grass; lighthouses and farmhouses; and sailing boats. The Long Leg brings two of them together in a nearly all-blue picture with the simplest of elements: a white sail leaning into the wind and a lighthouse with its keeper's house on a low sandy point. It is full of fair weather and strong light, yet a sense of isolation runs through it, as through all his sea pictures. The long reach of the title becomes a picture of solitude, a single boat with the whole bay to itself.
The vessels A small gaff-rigged sailing boat of the Cape Cod coast, where the Hoppers spent every summer from 1930; the boat is not a portrait of a particular vessel.
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A schooner at sea by moonlight Unnamed
Schooner under the Moon, c. 1935 to 1936
Artist Alfred Wallis (1855 to 1942)
Where to see it Tate, London (T00219)
Medium Oil paint and graphite on cardboard on plywood
Wallis knew schooners from the inside: from 1876 he sailed in them across the North Atlantic between Penzance and Newfoundland, earning a good wage as a young married man. Some sixty years later, in his little house in Back Road West in St Ives, he painted them from memory on cardboard torn from packing boxes, with the ship's paint he bought in the Digey. Here a schooner under sail crosses a dark sea beneath a thin crescent moon, on a scrap of card cut to an irregular diamond. Ben Nicholson called Wallis's art something grown out of the Cornish seas and earth.
“something that has grown out of the Cornish seas and earth and which will endure”
The vessels Schooners carried cargoes such as dried cod across the North Atlantic between Newfoundland and Penzance in the nineteenth century; Wallis served in them from 1876.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Tate Britain, London. Photo: Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A sailing ship on the North Atlantic, remembered from Wallis's voyage to Labrador Unnamed
Voyage to Labrador, c. 1935 to 1936
Artist Alfred Wallis (1855 to 1942)
Where to see it Tate, London (T00220)
Medium Oil on wood
As a young man Wallis sailed on schooners across the North Atlantic between Penzance and Newfoundland, and in August 1876 he went to Batteau Harbour, a remote part of Labrador, spending several months there as ship's cook. On the way home in October his ship, the Belle Aventure, met a storm, and the crew survived only by throwing part of her cargo of dried cod overboard. Some sixty years later, in St Ives, he painted the voyage from memory on a piece of wood. He said he painted what we may never see again, and this is his own youth under sail.
“what use To Bee out of my own memery what we may never see again”
The vessels Schooners carried cargoes such as dried cod across the North Atlantic between Cornwall and Newfoundland; Wallis's return voyage from Labrador in 1876 was aboard the Belle Aventure.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Tate Britain, London. Photo: Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
SS Alba Named ship
Wreck of the Alba, c. 1938 to 1939
Artist Alfred Wallis (1855 to 1942)
Where to see it Tate, London (T06871)
Medium Oil on wood
On the night of 31 January 1938 the Panamanian steamer Alba, seeking shelter from a north-westerly gale, mistook the lights of Porthmeor for those of St Ives and went aground on the Three Brothers rocks, below the town where Wallis lived. The St Ives lifeboat took off all her crew and then overturned on the way in; the lifeboatmen were saved, but five of Alba's men died. Wallis, a former deep-sea sailor then in his eighties, painted the wreck several times. In his pictures scale follows importance rather than perspective, like an early map, as though told by a neighbour who watched it all.
The real ship Alba was a 2,310-ton steel steamship built by the Detroit Shipbuilding Company in 1920, 76.5 metres long, owned under the Panamanian flag. She went aground off St Ives on 31 January 1938; her boiler can still be seen on Porthmeor Beach.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Tate Britain, London. Photo: Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A catboat under sail off Cape Cod Unnamed
Ground Swell, 1939
Artist Edward Hopper (1882 to 1967)
Where to see it National Gallery of Art, Washington (Corcoran Collection)
Medium Oil on canvas
Hopper painted this at his studio in Truro on Cape Cod in August and September 1939; his daybook records that he finished it on 15 September, a fortnight after war broke out in Europe. A group of young people sail a heeling catboat on a bright sea, but nobody looks at anybody: all eyes are on a bell buoy rolling in the swell, its clanging bell a warning. The curator Adam Greenhalgh has suggested the picture may reflect the beginning of the war, and cirrus clouds hint at a storm to come. It is Homer's Breezing Up retold with notes of peril, a lovely afternoon sail with danger in it.
The vessels A single-masted catboat under sail; Hopper laid on the white sail thickly with a palette knife and added the rigging in graphite pencil.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
HMS Ark Royal Named ship
HMS Ark Royal in Action, 1940
Artist Eric Ravilious (1903 to 1942)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 284)
Medium Watercolour and graphite on paper
Painted from the destroyer Highlander during the Norwegian campaign and inscribed 9th June 1940, this is a night scene: the carrier Ark Royal firing her guns, four other ships faint on the horizon. The Imperial War Museum reads it as a picture of the sublime, where the brightness of the explosion hides for a moment how precarious the crew are, utterly dependent on their metal ship at sea. Ravilious keeps his usual patterned calm, which makes the flash of gunfire all the more startling. Ark Royal came home from Norway; she was lost to a U-boat torpedo seventeen months later.
“the crew utterly dependent on the metal boat for their lives at sea”
The real ship Built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead and completed in November 1938, Ark Royal was the first ship on which the hangars and flight deck were an integral part of the hull. Torpedoed by U-81 on 13 November 1941, she sank the next day with the loss of one man.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
HMS Glorious Named ship
HMS Glorious in the Arctic, 1940
Artist Eric Ravilious (1903 to 1942)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 283)
Medium Watercolour on paper
Ravilious sailed to Norway on 24 May 1940 aboard the destroyer Highlander, escorting Glorious, and painted the carrier from her deck. The picture shows Hurricanes and Gladiators coming in to land during the evacuation from Norway; the Imperial War Museum notes the joke in it, a ship aptly shown in glorious sunshine, the sky and sea built from his careful cross-hatching. On 8 June Glorious was sunk with great loss of life, which gives this calm, bright watercolour a weight Ravilious could not have known.
“aptly shown in glorious sunshine with aircraft almost cheerfully in flight above”
The real ship Glorious was completed in late 1916 as a Courageous-class battlecruiser and rebuilt as an aircraft carrier between 1924 and 1930. While returning from the evacuation of Norway she was sunk by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on 8 June 1940, with the loss of over 1,200 lives.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
Warships off Norway seen from the destroyer HMS Highlander Unnamed
Midnight Sun, 1940
Artist Eric Ravilious (1903 to 1942)
Where to see it Tate, London (N05723)
Medium Watercolour and graphite on paper
Taken on by the War Artists Advisory Committee in December 1939 and assigned to the Admiralty, Ravilious sailed to Norway on 24 May 1940 aboard the destroyer Highlander, escorting the carrier Glorious. The title of this watercolour places it in the far north, where the sun does not set in summer. We stand on a destroyer's deck by a depth-charge thrower, a lifebuoy and a coiled rail, and look out to a carrier and her escorts on the horizon under a low red sun. The light is the real subject, and war at sea looks strangely serene.
The vessels HMS Highlander, the destroyer that carried Ravilious north, was ordered by Brazil as Jaguaribe, bought by Britain in September 1939 and commissioned in March 1940; she later led Atlantic convoy escorts, including Convoy SC 122 in March 1943, and was sold for scrap in 1946.
Sources Tate · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
HMS Kelly Named ship
HMS 'Kelly' Limping Home from the Skagerrak, 1941
Artist William Dring (1904 to 1990)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (BHC2413)
Medium Oil on canvas
As an official war artist Dring painted mostly portraits for the Admiralty, but he also made a few paintings from photographs, of which this atmospheric canvas is one. At 22.45 on 9 May 1940 Mountbatten's destroyer Kelly was torpedoed north of Denmark by the German S-boat S-31; both boiler rooms flooded and she lost all power, taking a severe list to starboard. Towed first by Bulldog and then by the tug Watermeyer through worsening weather, with only eighteen volunteers left aboard, she reached the Tyne on the evening of 13 May. The picture is about survival: a crippled ship that refused to sink.
The real ship Built by Hawthorn Leslie at Hebburn on the Tyne, launched on 25 October 1938 and commissioned on 23 August 1939, Kelly was the flotilla leader of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla under Lord Louis Mountbatten; repaired after the 1940 torpedoing, she was lost in action in 1941 during the Battle of Crete.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, where the original is kept. Photo: TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A merchant ship loading Matilda tanks for Russia Unnamed
Loading Tanks for Russia, 1941
Artist Leslie Cole (1910 to 1976)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 1922)
Medium Oil on canvas
In 1941 Britain began sending tanks to the Soviet Union, and Cole, then teaching at Hull College of Art and trying to win work as a war artist, recorded the loading in Hull Docks. A Matilda tank swings down from a crane onto the deck of a merchant ship while six merchant seamen watch and a soldier rides on the tank; another Matilda already sits on deck beside an officer in a red cap. The ship is a workhorse, and the picture is about the men who handled cargo bound for Russia.
The vessels British merchant ships carried tanks and other war material to the Soviet Union from 1941 as part of Allied aid; the ship here, loading at Hull, is not identified.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
HMS Wrestler Named ship
A Destroyer Rescuing Survivors, 1942
Artist Richard Eurich (1903 to 1992)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 2297)
Medium Oil on canvas
The Imperial War Museum records this as survivors in a lifeboat preparing to be picked up by a destroyer in a heavy sea, and associates it with HMS Wrestler. To make sure his seas and ships were right, Eurich made several trips on destroyers patrolling the Straits of Dover, and it shows: the moment of rescue hangs on seamanship, the small boat and the warship brought together in rough water. It is the other side of his Survivors from a Torpedoed Ship, the ending that did come for many crews. The destroyer becomes a place of safety, not of war.
The real ship Wrestler was a W-class destroyer built by Swan Hunter at Wallsend, laid down in July 1917 and completed in May 1918; she was active again in the Second World War from 1939 to 1944.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
The upturned lifeboat of a torpedoed merchant ship Unnamed
Survivors from a Torpedoed Ship, 1942
Artist Richard Eurich (1903 to 1992)
Where to see it Tate, London (N05692)
Medium Oil on canvas
Eurich worked for the Admiralty from 1941 to 1945; to get his ships right he made trips on destroyers patrolling the Straits of Dover, and some pictures were built from photographs and eyewitness accounts, others wholly from imagination. This is one of the imagined ones: exhausted men clinging to the upturned hull of their lifeboat, their ship gone. It was greatly praised, Winston Churchill among its admirers, but the War Artists' Advisory Committee quickly withdrew it from public display for fear it would harm recruitment to the Merchant Navy. The small boat, keel to the sky, says what official pictures left out.
The vessels Every merchant ship carried lifeboats, and in the Second World War crews of torpedoed ships took to them; the ship and men here are imagined, not a record of a single sinking.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Tate Britain, London. Photo: Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
The convoy of the North African landings, 1942, with two destroyers Unnamed
The Great Convoy to North Africa, 1942, 1943
Artist Richard Eurich (1903 to 1992)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 3477)
Medium Oil on panel
A long, thin panorama, more than a metre and a quarter wide and barely a third of a metre tall, of a convoy heading out for the Atlantic, seen from the shore. In the centre a pair of disembodied hands hold binoculars up to us, and in their lenses two destroyers of the escort jump into close focus. Eurich, known for his panoramic seascapes, turns the viewer into a watcher on the coast, counting ships and wishing them well. The title names its purpose: the great convoy of 1942 that carried the Allied forces to North Africa.
The vessels Troop and supply convoys under naval escort carried the Allied forces to North Africa in 1942; the ships in the panorama are not individually identified.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Maltese dgħajjes and fishing boats damaged by bombing Unnamed
Maltese Fishermen Mending Bombed Dghaisas and other Boats, 1943
Artist Leslie Cole (1910 to 1976)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 3240)
Medium Oil on canvas
Cole, a war artist from 1942, reached Malta in May 1943 as the siege of the island was ending, and here, instead of warships, he chose the island's own boats. Five fishermen repair five boats, four seen bow on in the foreground and the largest side on behind them, against a white brick wall and whitewashed buildings. The dgħajsa, Malta's harbour boat, had ferried passengers across Grand Harbour since the days of the Knights. Here the war is measured in damaged planking and patient hands.
The vessels The dgħajsa tal-pass developed in the early seventeenth century as a water taxi and was widely used to ferry passengers in Grand Harbour and Marsamxett Harbour from the eighteenth to the twentieth century; only a few remain in service today.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Ships in the port of Algiers Unnamed
The Port of Algiers in the Haze (Le Port d'Alger sous la brume), 1943
Artist Albert Marquet (1875 to 1947)
Where to see it Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux (Bx 1962.9.6)
Medium Oil on canvas
As a frail boy in Bordeaux, with a club foot and uncorrected short sight, Marquet would slip in among the barrels and bales on the quays to watch the ships arrive and leave; water and boats became his lifelong subject. From 1920 he left Paris every winter for Algiers, where he painted the port tirelessly, and he spent the Second World War there. This late view, painted in 1943, wraps the ships and quays of the harbour in a pink and violet haze, palms dark in the foreground. It now belongs to his native Bordeaux, where his love of harbours began.
The vessels Cargo steamers and harbour craft in the port of Algiers during the Second World War; none is identified.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikidata · Wikipedia (FR)
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Mulberry harbour caissons moored off Selsey Bill Unnamed
Mulberry: The Prefabricated Harbour Assembled, Selsey Bill, 1944
Artist Richard Eurich (1903 to 1992)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART LD 5189)
Medium Oil on canvas
Inscribed Selsey Bill, May 1944, a few weeks before D-Day. Offshore float the floating caissons that would form the Mulberry harbour, moored along the Sussex coast; in the foreground the beach is lined with concrete anti-invasion defences. Eurich, who had spent the early 1930s living in small fishing ports on the south coast, paints the strangest fleet of the war: floating blocks of concrete waiting to become a harbour. The picture holds its breath, like the whole coast that spring.
The vessels The Mulberry harbours were prefabricated ports, their floating caissons towed across the Channel to Normandy after the landings of June 1944.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
HMCS Prince David Named ship
On the Bridge, 1944
Artist Alex Colville (1920 to 2013)
Where to see it Canadian War Museum, Ottawa (19820303-252)
Medium Watercolour, pastel and ink on paper
Dated 24 August 1944, which was also Colville's twenty-fourth birthday, this watercolour puts us on the bridge of HMCS Prince David in the Mediterranean. A crewman in dark glasses and headphones sits in the foreground, his jersey stencilled with the ship's name and Royal Canadian Navy; behind him an officer scans the sea through binoculars. Nothing happens, and that is the point: the watchful calm of a ship at war. After the landings in the south of France on 15 August, Prince David had spent the days until the 24th carrying reinforcements to the invasion area.
The real ship Ordered from Cammell Laird in 1929 by Canadian National Steamships as a small three-funnelled luxury liner for the West Coast, Prince David became an armed merchant cruiser in 1939, was converted into an infantry landing ship in 1943, took part in the landings in the south of France in August 1944, and returned to merchant service after the war.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
Tirpitz Named ship
The Wreck of the Tirpitz, June 1945
Artist Stephen Bone (1904 to 1958)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (IWM ART LD 5441)
Medium Oil on board
Signed and dated 21 June 1945, Bone's small oil sketch on board shows what was left of the great battleship in the waters off Tromsø. Tirpitz had capsized on 12 November 1944 after RAF Lancasters hit her with 12,000-pound Tallboy bombs; between 950 and 1,204 men died. Bone paints the overturned hull as a long rust-orange shape lying in a grey fjord below snow-streaked mountains, tiny figures standing on it and a small vessel moored alongside. There is no triumph in it, only the strange stillness of an enormous ship turned over like a stranded whale.
The real ship Tirpitz, second of the two Bismarck-class battleships of the Kriegsmarine, was sent to Norway in 1942 to threaten Allied convoys and tie down the Royal Navy; she capsized on 12 November 1944 after Tallboy bomb hits, and the wreck was broken up by a joint Norwegian and German salvage operation between 1948 and 1957.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A fully rigged sailing ship made of the sea Myth and legend
The Seducer (Le Séducteur), 1950
Artist René Magritte (1898 to 1967)
Where to see it Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond
Medium Oil on canvas
Magritte paints a fully rigged sailing ship on the sea under a blue sky, but the ship has no substance of its own: its silhouette is filled with the same waves it sails on. It is the sea taking the shape of a ship, or a ship dissolving back into the sea. He painted it in Brussels in 1950 and made further versions in 1951 and 1953, a sign of how the idea held him. The small canvas, 38 by 46 centimetres, is worked in dark and light blues, a ship made entirely of the element that carries it.
The legend An imaginary ship: a fully rigged sailing ship whose outline is filled with the waves of the sea.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikipedia (FR)
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, where the original is kept. Photo: Morgan Riley, Midlothian, Virginia, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Painting
A submarine seen through its periscope, from a DC war comic Myth and legend
Torpedo...Los!, 1963
Artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923 to 1997)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Oil on canvas
Lichtenstein took this image from Jack Abel's drawing for the DC war comic Our Fighting Forces of October 1962, in a story called Battle of the Ghost Ships? He enlarged the captain's face, moved his scar from nose to cheek, opened his mouth wide and cut the speech balloon down to two words: the order to fire. The submarine is present as the periscope pressed to the captain's eye, a painting about seeing through a machine. It was shown with Drowning Girl and Whaam! at Leo Castelli in 1963, and in 1989 set an auction record for the artist.
“a comic-strip image of sea warfare”
The legend A fictional submarine from a comic book war story, not a real vessel.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists.
Twentieth-century art · Painting
SS Amsterdam Named ship
SS Amsterdam in Front of Rotterdam, 1966
Artist Malcolm Morley (1931 to 2018)
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Painting on canvas
Morley, a Londoner whose balsawood model of HMS Nelson was destroyed with his home by a wartime bomb, became one of the first photorealists in New York in the mid-1960s, and ships were among his most frequent subjects. He tried painting liners from life at Pier 57 and found he could not take them in at a glance, so he turned to postcards and travel brochures, copying them square by square through a grid, sometimes even their white borders. This canvas of the Amsterdam in front of Rotterdam belongs to that moment. In 2015 it sold at Christie's for nearly 1.9 million dollars.
“it was impossible to comprehend it in one glance”
The real ship The painting reproduces a printed postcard of a passenger ship named Amsterdam off Rotterdam; the vessel's own history is not recorded.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Rotterdam. Photo: FaceMePLS from The Hague, The Netherlands, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Twentieth-century art · Drawing
HMS Agamemnon Named ship
HMS Agamemnon at Malta: Coaling and Taking in Ammunition, undated
Artist Frank Henry Mason (1875 to 1965)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Art.IWM ART 3131)
Medium Watercolour on paper
A battleship lies at anchor in a Malta harbour, seen from the starboard side, with small boats and barges clustered round her as she takes in coal and ammunition; fortifications and the signal station stand to the left. Mason had been to sea and trained as a marine engineer before he became a painter, and he records the dirty, tireless routine of keeping a coal-fired warship ready. Agamemnon was a veteran of the Dardanelles bombardments, and it was aboard her, at anchor off Lemnos, that the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918.
The real ship Agamemnon was a Lord Nelson-class pre-dreadnought launched in 1906 and completed in 1908. She bombarded the Dardanelles forts in 1915, shot down the Zeppelin LZ 55 over Salonica in 1916, and hosted the signing of the Armistice of Mudros at Lemnos on 30 October 1918; she was sold for scrap in January 1927.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Imperial War Museums, London, where the original is kept. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the work at the museum
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Great Britain Named ship
SS Great Britain in Bristol Harbour, April 1844
Photographer William Henry Fox Talbot (1800 to 1877)
Medium Calotype
In April 1844 William Henry Fox Talbot, inventor of the calotype, photographed Brunel's new ship fitting out alongside the Gasworks quay in Bristol's Floating Harbour. It is the first photograph taken of Great Britain and is believed to be the first photograph ever taken of a ship. The two firsts meet in one grainy image: a pioneering iron screw steamer, her six masts and funnel rising above the water, recorded by a pioneering medium. The ship herself survives at Bristol today.
The real ship Great Britain was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Steamship Company and launched at Bristol in 1843, the first large ocean-going ship to combine an iron hull with a screw propeller; in 1845 she became the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic, in 14 days. She is now a museum ship in Bristol.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: William Henry Fox Talbot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Sandy Linton's fishing boat Unnamed
Sandy (or James) Linton, his Boat and Bairns (Newhaven 45), about June 1845
Photographer David Octavius Hill (1802 to 1870) and Robert Adamson (1821 to 1848)
Where to see it National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (PGP HA 297)
Medium Salted paper print
Scotland's first photographic studio turned from ministers and notable figures to the fishing village of Newhaven, below Edinburgh. Here the fisherman Sandy Linton leans on the bow of his boat, its home port lettered on the planking, while his children sit at his feet. The National Galleries of Scotland note how often Hill and Adamson photographed fishermen with their sons, showing skills handed down through the generations. The boat is livelihood and inheritance at once, caught in the warm browns of the salted paper print.
“Hill and Adamson often photographed the fishermen with their sons.”
The vessels The boat is a Newhaven fishing boat of the 1840s; the men of the village caught the fish, and the fishwives carried the catch uphill to sell in Edinburgh.
Sources National Galleries Scotland · Wikipedia
Image: David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, No known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
The brig Palacea Named ship
Palacea Brig Hove Down, Malta, 1 May 1846
Photographer Calvert Richard Jones (1804 to 1877)
Where to see it Bodleian Libraries, Oxford
Medium Calotype
Calvert Jones, a Welsh painter of seascapes who moved in Henry Fox Talbot's circle, travelled with his camera to Malta and on 1 May 1846 photographed the brig Palacea hove down, pulled over on her side at the quay. It is a working scene rather than a heroic one, and a painter's choice: the camera looks up into a tangle of slanting masts, yards, blocks and rigging above the stone bollards, the ship at her most vulnerable. Jones is credited with taking the first photograph in Wales, and here the new art looks closely at a sailing vessel.
The real ship Palacea was a brig, a two-masted square-rigged vessel, photographed while hove down at Malta in 1846; nothing more of her history is recorded.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Calvert Richard Jones, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Transports and sailing ships in Balaklava harbour Unnamed
Balaklava Harbour, the Cattle Pier, 1855
Photographer Roger Fenton (1819 to 1869)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (Roger Fenton Crimean War photographs)
Medium Photographic print from glass negative
Fenton set out for Balaklava on 20 February 1855 with five cameras, seven hundred glass plates and a wine merchant's van turned into a darkroom, and landed there in March. At the cattle pier a three-masted ship lies moored above a quay crowded with huts, tents, carts and horses, the bare Crimean hills rising behind. Ships like her carried everything the army before Sevastopol needed. Fenton left the Crimea in late June with more than 350 negatives, and presented prints to Queen Victoria that August.
The vessels The vessel is an unidentified sailing transport of the kind that supplied the British army through Balaklava in the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856.
Sources Library of Congress · The Met · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
HMS Diamond and HMS Wasp Named ship
The Diamond and Wasp, Balaklava Harbour, March 1855
Photographer Roger Fenton (1819 to 1869)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2019.349)
Medium Albumen silver print from glass negative
Balaklava was the Black Sea harbour through which the British supplied the siege of Sevastopol, and the British press carried claims of mismanagement there. Fenton, sent out by the publisher Thomas Agnew with a letter of introduction from Prince Albert, answered with this view of a busy, orderly port: HMS Diamond and HMS Wasp overseeing the transports, rowing boats, a large stack of crates and a rail track in the foreground. The warships are the calm centre of the picture, emblems of a harbour under control.
The real ship Diamond and Wasp were Royal Navy ships at Balaklava in 1855, where they oversaw the movement of transports into and out of the harbour that supplied the British army before Sevastopol.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Sailing boats leaving Le Havre Unnamed
Boats Leaving the Port of Le Havre (Bateaux quittant le port du Havre), 1856 to 1857
Photographer Gustave Le Gray (1820 to 1884)
Where to see it Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
Medium Photograph (albumen print from glass negative, as catalogued for Le Gray's other Le Havre views)
Le Gray's most famous work dates from 1856 to 1858, especially his seascapes, and this view at Le Havre belongs to that moment. A line of sailing vessels stands out towards the open sea, their dark sails silhouetted against a bright, clouded sky, while the jetty on the right, with its lighthouse and a crowd of onlookers, frames the harbour mouth. Light breaks across the water beneath the hulls. Boats leaving harbour gave him the movement, light and human purpose that made these seascapes famous.
The vessels Unidentified sailing vessels, from small cutters to square-rigged ships, leaving the port of Le Havre at the mouth of the Seine in the 1850s.
Sources gallica.bnf.fr · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Gustave Le Gray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
A brig under sail Unnamed
Brig on the Water (Brick au clair de lune), 1856
Photographer Gustave Le Gray (1820 to 1884)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1976.645.1)
Medium Albumen silver print from glass negative
A single brig sails on a sheet of silvered water beneath a great mass of cloud. Le Gray made it from one negative, not the two he later combined, relying on the sea's reflective surface and the look of twilight or moonlight to hold sky and water together. The ship gives the picture its whole scale and stillness: take it away and there is only light. It became one of the most famous and widely distributed photographs of the nineteenth century, a success in England as well as France.
“800 copies subscribed for in two months.”
The vessels The vessel is an unidentified merchant brig, the common two-masted, square-rigged coasting and trading ship of the mid-nineteenth century.
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
La Reine Hortense Named ship
La Reine Hortense, Yacht de l'Empereur, Havre, 1856
Photographer Gustave Le Gray (1820 to 1884)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.273)
Medium Albumen silver print from glass negative
Le Gray photographed Napoleon III's yacht in the port of Le Havre in July 1856, just before she sailed for Greenland and Spitzbergen on an expedition led by Prince Napoleon. The Met notes how her rigging and guys seem to secure her perfect place in the frame. Le Gray used a new technique here, the glass plate negative and the albumen print, to give limpid air and extreme clarity of detail: a fitting method for a portrait of a ship on the eve of an Arctic voyage.
The real ship La Reine Hortense was the imperial yacht of Napoleon III; in the summer of 1856 she carried Prince Napoleon's expedition from Le Havre towards Greenland and Spitsbergen.
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Great Eastern Named ship
The Bow of the Great Eastern, 1857
Photographer Robert Howlett (1831 to 1858)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.12)
Medium Albumen silver print from glass negative
Before the attempted launch of 3 November 1857 Howlett photographed the great hull on the shore at Millwall, and the Met describes the bow rising like a cliff over the marshy Isle of Dogs. It is a ship seen as architecture, or as geology: there is no sea, only iron, timber and mud, and a vessel six times larger than any built before. Nine engravings made from Howlett's photographs filled a special number of the Illustrated Times devoted to the ship, then called Leviathan.
“like a cliff over the marshy landscape of the Isle of Dogs”
The real ship Great Eastern was designed by Brunel and built by John Scott Russell and Co. at Millwall on the Thames. Driven by paddle wheels and a screw, 692 feet long and by far the largest ship ever built when she was launched in 1858, she laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866 and was broken up on Merseyside in 1889. Her sideways launch took some three months.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Two sailing boats entering the port of Sète Unnamed
The Broken Wave, Sète (La Vague brisée, Mer Méditerranée), 1857
Photographer Gustave Le Gray (1820 to 1884)
Where to see it Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
Medium Photographic print from glass negative
In April 1857 Le Gray worked at the port of Sète and made a series of seascapes whose effects of sun, cloud and water stunned his contemporaries and brought him international recognition. The most famous, The Great Wave, shows no ship; its upright companion, The Broken Wave, does. Two small sailing boats make for the harbour past the end of the mole while a wave bursts white over the rocks in front, and they turn a study of weather into a scene of boats coming home.
The vessels The two vessels are unidentified small sailing boats with lateen sails, entering the port of Sète on the Mediterranean.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Gustave Le Gray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Great Eastern Named ship
Isambard Kingdom Brunel Standing Before the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern, 1857
Photographer Robert Howlett (1831 to 1858)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.11)
Medium Albumen silver print from glass negative
The ship is present only as its chains, and that is the strength of the picture. Brunel stands before the massive links wound round the checking drums that restrained his Great Eastern on the slip at Millwall, top hat on, cigar in mouth, trousers and boots spattered with mud. Howlett made it for the Illustrated Times, which had commissioned him to record the building of the largest ship in the world. The Met calls it a memorable depiction of the engineer as hero, and the iron behind him says everything about the scale of what he was trying to launch.
“memorable depiction of the engineer as hero”
The real ship Great Eastern was designed by Brunel and built by John Scott Russell and Co. at Millwall on the Thames. Driven by paddle wheels and a screw, 692 feet long and by far the largest ship ever built when she was launched in 1858, she laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866 and was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Great Eastern Named ship
Men at Work Beside the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern, 18 November 1857
Photographer Robert Howlett (1831 to 1858)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.839)
Medium Albumen silver print from glass negative
Made on 18 November 1857, two weeks after the launch of the Great Eastern had begun on 3 November, this photograph belongs to the same campaign as Howlett's portrait of Brunel. Here the figures are the workmen, set beside the launching chains that were meant to control the hull's slide sideways towards the Thames. Moving the ship into the water took some three months, and Howlett's pictures record a vessel so large that her launch became a national drama.
The real ship Great Eastern was designed by Brunel and built by John Scott Russell and Co. at Millwall on the Thames. Driven by paddle wheels and a screw, 692 feet long and by far the largest ship ever built when she was launched in 1858, she laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866 and was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
A paddle or screw steamer at sea Unnamed
Steamboat (Vapeur), 1857
Photographer Gustave Le Gray (1820 to 1884)
Where to see it Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Medium Photograph
Among the seascapes of 1856 to 1858 that made Le Gray's name is this view of steamers at sea. A ship with masts and a funnel trails a long plume of black smoke across a calm sea, a smaller steamer ahead of her, the smoke drifting along the horizon like a second line of cloud. Where the brig of his earlier picture belongs to an old maritime world, these steamers bring the age of iron and coal into the same silvery light. Le Gray, trained as a painter, has been called the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century.
The vessels The vessels are unidentified steamships of the 1850s, one of them still carrying masts for sail.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Gustave Le Gray, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
French and British fleets in the roads of Cherbourg Unnamed
The French and English Fleets, Cherbourg, August 1858
Photographer Gustave Le Gray (1820 to 1884)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2013.159.37)
Medium Albumen silver print from glass negative
In August 1858 Le Gray went to Cherbourg and Brest to photograph the naval exercises of the French and English fleets. He treats the great warships as he treated clouds, as shapes in a wide field of sea and light, and the Met's curators note that their small size in the frame suggests toy boats afloat in a bath. That is the charm and the unease of the picture: some of the most powerful machines of the age, reduced to delicate silhouettes on a shining roadstead.
“a bit of child's play with models afloat in a bath.”
The vessels The ships are warships of the French Navy and the Royal Navy, photographed at Cherbourg during the naval exercises of August 1858; they are not individually identified.
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
USS Monitor Named ship
The Original Monitor after her Fight with the Merrimac, 9 July 1862
Photographer James F. Gibson (born 1828)
Where to see it Boston Public Library (Print Department; DPLA 68cf47b2037f9c0a71962b8d2cbf7f7c)
Medium Albumen stereograph
Gibson photographed part of Monitor's deck and turret in the James River on 9 July 1862, four months after Hampton Roads, with officers standing and sitting at ease beside it. The camera records what that battle had done: dents in the turret plating near the gun port, where the shot of the Confederate ironclad struck and failed to break through. Those marks are the evidence of a new age at sea. The view was later sold as a stereograph in the War Memories catalogue of 1890.
“near the port-hole can be seen the dents made by the heavy steel-pointed shot from the guns of the ‘Merrimac.’”
The real ship Monitor, designed by John Ericsson with a revolving turret designed by Theodore Timby, was built in 101 days in Brooklyn and fought CSS Virginia to a stalemate at Hampton Roads on 9 March 1862, the first battle between ironclads. She foundered under tow in a storm off Cape Hatteras on the last day of 1862.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: James F. Gibson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
USS Monitor Named ship
Sailors Relaxing on Deck of USS Monitor, James River, 9 July 1862
Photographer James F. Gibson (born 1828)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (Civil War Glass Negatives, cwpb.01062)
Medium Glass plate negative (stereo pair)
Four months after her battle with CSS Virginia, Monitor lay in the James River and James F. Gibson brought his camera aboard. The crew gather on the low iron deck in front of the riveted turret, a canvas awning spread above it: some sit reading, two men bend over a board game, others stand and watch the camera. It is a rare view of ordinary life aboard the first ironclad of the United States Navy, and it carries a sadness the men could not know, for before the year was out Monitor foundered off Cape Hatteras.
The real ship Monitor, designed by John Ericsson with a revolving turret designed by Theodore Timby, was built in 101 days in Brooklyn and fought CSS Virginia to a stalemate at Hampton Roads on 9 March 1862, the first battle between ironclads. She foundered under tow in a storm off Cape Hatteras on the last day of 1862.
Sources Library of Congress · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: James F. Gibson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
CSS Alabama Named ship
Captain Raphael Semmes Aboard CSS Alabama, Cape Town, August 1863
Photographer Unknown photographer (carte de visite mount of E. Burmester, Cape Town)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 57256 KN)
Medium Albumen print, lightly tinted, on carte de visite mount
When Alabama called at Cape Town in August 1863 she was the Confederate raider that had been capturing and burning Union merchant ships across the Atlantic. Her captain, Raphael Semmes, stands on deck beside the ship's 110-pounder rifled gun, while his executive officer, First Lieutenant John Kell, waits by the wheel behind him. The print, lightly tinted and mounted as a carte de visite by a Cape Town studio, has the assurance of a ship at the height of her career, ten months before Kearsarge sank her off Cherbourg.
The real ship Alabama was built in secrecy in 1862 by John Laird Sons and Company at Birkenhead, launched as Enrica and commissioned as CSS Alabama on 24 August 1862. Under Semmes she raided Union shipping from the North Atlantic to the East Indies until USS Kearsarge sank her off Cherbourg on 19 June 1864.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
USS Onondaga Named ship
James River, Virginia: Monitor USS Onondaga, Soldiers in Rowing Boat in Foreground, 1864
Photographer Unknown photographer (Brady collection, Civil War Glass Negatives)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (cwpb.01514)
Medium Glass plate negative (1 negative, 2 plates)
Onondaga spent her entire active career with the James River Flotilla, covering the water approaches to Richmond, and a Civil War photographer found her there in 1864. The monitor lies low in the river, her tall funnel and canvas awnings rising above a hull that barely shows, the Stars and Stripes flying aft. In the foreground a crew of soldiers sits in a wooden rowing boat drawn up by the shingle. The contrast is the picture: a small boat full of men beside an iron warship that is almost all deck and turret.
The real ship Onondaga, an ironclad monitor, was commissioned in 1864 and served with the James River Flotilla, fighting at Trent's Reach. After the war she was bought by France and served as a coastal defence ship, becoming a guard ship in 1898; she was sold for scrap in 1904 and demolished in 1905.
Sources Library of Congress · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Great Eastern Named ship
Great Eastern at Heart's Content, July 1866
Photographer Robert Edward Holloway (died 1904), probably
Where to see it Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's (Archives and Special Collections, digital collection arch_geog)
Medium Photograph
Brunel's giant was unprofitable as a liner, but within a few years she was put to laying underwater cable, and in 1866 she laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable. In July that year a photographer, most likely Robert Edward Holloway, recorded her at Heart's Content in Newfoundland, where the cable came ashore. She lies in the bay with other vessels moored alongside, one of her great paddle boxes plain to see, while a fenced field and the little settlement frame the scene. The largest ship of her age has become the ship that joined two continents.
The real ship Great Eastern was designed by Brunel and built by John Scott Russell and Co. at Millwall on the Thames, launched in 1858 as by far the largest ship yet built, driven by both paddle wheels and a screw. After unprofitable years as a liner she laid the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866; she ended as a floating music hall and advertising hoarding in Liverpool and was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.
Sources collections.mun.ca · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Robert Edward Holloway, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Cutty Sark Named ship
Cutty Sark at East Circular Quay, Sydney, c. 1885
Photographer Unknown photographer (A. D. Edwardes Collection)
Where to see it State Library of South Australia, Adelaide (PRG 1373/2/95)
Medium Photograph
Once steamers had taken the China tea trade, Cutty Sark turned to carrying wool from Australia, and for ten years she was the fastest ship in that trade. Here she lies at the east side of Circular Quay in Sydney, one of the ships of John Willis and Son of London, moored among other deep-water sailing ships beneath the Hill, Clarke and Co. warehouse, built in 1883, which dates the picture. The print belongs to the A. D. Edwardes Collection of about 8,000 photographs, mostly of sailing ships, and it catches the clipper at work in her Australian years.
The real ship Cutty Sark, a composite ship, was built at Dumbarton in 1869 by Scott and Linton, completed by Denny, for John Willis of London. After the tea trade she carried wool from Australia, was sold to Portuguese owners in 1895 and renamed Ferreira, was bought back and restored in 1922, and is displayed in dry dock at Greenwich.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Sailing ships and fishing boats in Whitby harbour Unnamed
Whitby Harbour, c. 1885
Photographer Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (1853 to 1941)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1996.244)
Medium Carbon print, toned, from glass negative
Sutcliffe made his living as a portrait photographer in Whitby and resented having to photograph holidaymakers; his lasting work was the town and the people who lived and worked there. Here sailing vessels and fishing boats lie in the harbour, their loosened sails hanging, masts crowding the frame, the town rising in haze behind. The toned carbon print softens it all into a single atmosphere. A founder member of the Linked Ring, the brotherhood that promoted photography as an art, he gave these working boats the attention a marine painter would.
The vessels The vessels are unidentified sailing vessels and fishing boats of the kind that used Whitby harbour in the 1880s.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Norfolk wherries at Cantley Unnamed
Cantley: Wherries Waiting for the Turn of the Tide (Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads, plate XXIV), 1886
Photographer Peter Henry Emerson (1856 to 1936)
Where to see it Cleveland Museum of Art (1986.190)
Medium Platinum print
Emerson's first album, Life and Landscape on the Norfolk Broads of 1886, made with the painter T. F. Goodall, gathered forty platinum prints of life in the East Anglian marshes. Here three trading wherries lie by a brick house at Cantley, their tall sails set and mirrored in still water as they wait for the turn of the tide. Emerson argued for a naturalistic photography that portrayed rural subjects simply and directly, and the quiet of the scene is the point: boats, water and a clouded evening sky held in the soft greys of platinum.
The vessels The Norfolk wherry was a single-masted trading boat of the rivers and broads of East Anglia; those shown here are unnamed.
Sources Cleveland Museum of Art · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Marshman's rowing boat Unnamed
Rowing Home the Schoof-Stuff, 1886
Photographer Peter Henry Emerson (1856 to 1936)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.726)
Medium Platinum print from glass negative
A marshman rows home across still water at dusk, seen from behind, his small boat loaded with a bundle of cut marsh growth, the schoof stuff of the title. His oars stretch out level on either side and his reflection falls straight down into the water. Emerson, who argued for a naturalistic photography of country life, made this in 1886, and the scene holds the man, his boat and the flat reed-fringed horizon in perfect balance. In a country made of water, the boat is his cart and his road.
The vessels An unnamed small working rowing boat of the Norfolk Broads, used here to bring home a load cut from the marsh.
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Reed boat on the Norfolk Broads Unnamed
Towing the Reed, 1887 to 1888
Photographer Peter Henry Emerson (1856 to 1936)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1994.520.1)
Medium Platinum print
Emerson spent the late 1880s photographing the working life of the Norfolk marshes, and reed, cut from the beds and moved along the waterways, was one of its harvests. This platinum print of 1887 to 1888 records reed being towed along the marsh waters. He argued for a naturalistic photography that showed rural subjects simply and directly, in reaction to the staged sentiment of Victorian art photography, and the scene has the calm clarity of a naturalist's observation. The boat is a humble one, a tool of the marsh economy, treated with complete seriousness.
The vessels An unnamed working boat of the Norfolk marshes, of the kind used to carry cut reed along the dykes and broads.
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
HMS Victoria Named ship
HMS Victoria Sinking after Collision with HMS Camperdown, 22 June 1893
Photographer Staff Surgeon James Alexander Collot (died 1894)
Medium Photograph
During fleet manoeuvres near Tripoli on 22 June 1893, the flagship Victoria collided with HMS Camperdown and quickly sank. Staff Surgeon James Collot photographed her last moments: her stern rises steeply from the water amid a cloud of smoke and spray, while HMS Nile steams on the left of the frame. The image is stark and still, and it needs no comment. In all, 358 of her crew were lost, among them Vice Admiral Sir George Tryon, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet; one of the survivors was her executive officer, John Jellicoe, later commander at Jutland.
The real ship Victoria was the lead ship of a class of two battleships, renamed from Renown during construction for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. On completion she was the largest, fastest and most powerful ironclad afloat and the first battleship propelled by triple-expansion engines. She sank after colliding with HMS Camperdown on 22 June 1893.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Staff Surgeon James Alexander Collot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Fram Named ship
Fram in the Ice (Fram i isen), 14 July 1894
Photographer Fridtjof Nansen (1861 to 1930)
Where to see it National Library of Norway, Oslo (bldsa 3c186)
Medium Photograph
Nansen's plan was bold: build a ship the ice could not crush, freeze her in off Siberia and let the current carry her across the Arctic towards the Pole. His own photograph records the experiment from inside it, Fram held among hummocks of summer pack in July 1894, her masts reflected in a pool of meltwater. Her hull was shaped so that pressing ice would push her upward rather than crush her. The ship is at once laboratory, home and proof of an idea, caught by the man who dreamed it.
The real ship Fram was designed and built by the shipwright Colin Archer of Larvik and launched in 1892 for Nansen's Arctic expedition of 1893 to 1896; her wide, shallow hull was shaped so that pressing ice would push her up. She later carried Sverdrup and Amundsen and is preserved at the Fram Museum in Oslo.
Sources flickr.com · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Fridtjof Nansen, No known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Wreck of USS Maine Named ship
American Divers at Work, Coming Up, Maine Wreck, Havana Harbour, 1898
Photographer Strohmeyer and Wyman (publishers); Underwood and Underwood
Medium Stereograph
After the explosion of 15 February 1898 the ruined Maine lay in Havana harbour, and American divers were sent down to the wreck. This stereograph, made to be seen in depth through a viewer at home, shows the divers' platform among tangled rigging and wreckage, one man in a copper helmet being helped by his tenders beside a salvage vessel. Cards like this carried the disaster into American homes while newspapers were blaming Spain and calling for war.
The real ship Maine sank in Havana Harbour after an explosion on 15 February 1898, which contributed to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War that April; evidence points to an internal coal bunker fire rather than a mine.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Strohmeyer and Wyman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Floating wash house on the Seine Unnamed
Bateau Lavoir on the Seine (Bateau lavoir sur la Seine), 1898 to 1899
Photographer Eugène Atget (1857 to 1927)
Where to see it The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1.1969.1713)
Medium Photograph
Atget, who had joined the merchant navy as a young man, set out to document the architecture and street scenes of Paris before modernisation swept them away, and the bateaux lavoirs belonged to that disappearing city. These were great boats moored to the bank and turned into public wash houses; many Parisians thought them an eyesore, and they would soon vanish from the Seine. Here one lies against the quay under its curved roofs and tall chimneys, a sign for the baths above the door. Atget recorded it with the same patient clarity he gave to every shop front.
The vessels A bateau lavoir was a pontoon or large boat anchored to the riverbank and converted into a public laundry; in the nineteenth century several were moored in the centre of Paris.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia (FR) · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
USS Maine Named ship
The USS Maine Entering Havana Harbour, 25 January 1898
Photographer John C. Hemment
Source Published in Munsey's Magazine, November 1898; also National Archives, Washington (531001)
Medium Photograph, reproduced as halftone
Maine was sent to Havana to protect American interests during the Cuban War of Independence, and John C. Hemment photographed her steaming in past the lighthouse and fortress at the harbour mouth on 25 January 1898, two boys watching from a rock in the foreground. Three weeks later, on the evening of 15 February, she exploded and sank, killing 268 sailors. American newspapers blamed Spain and war followed in April, though evidence points to an accidental coal bunker fire. The picture shows a warship arriving on a routine mission, the prologue to a war.
“Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!”
The real ship Maine, described as an armoured cruiser or second-class battleship, was ordered in 1886 and was the first US Navy ship named after the state; her construction took nine years. She exploded and sank in Havana Harbour on 15 February 1898; in 1911 the wreck was patched and refloated inside a cofferdam, then towed to sea and sunk.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: John C. Hemment, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Mohegan Named ship
The Wreck of the SS Mohegan on the Manacles, 1898
Photographer Attributed to the Gibsons of Scilly
Where to see it Gibsons of Scilly archive
Medium Photograph
Bound from Tilbury for New York on only her second voyage, the Mohegan ran onto the Manacles, the rocks off the Lizard, on the evening of 14 October 1898; 106 of the 157 people aboard were drowned. This photograph of the wreck is credited to the Gibson family of Scilly. It gives a quiet, sober face to the disaster: a ship built for safety at sea, with watertight bulkheads and eight lifeboats, lost within weeks of sailing under her new name.
The real ship She was built by Earle's Shipbuilding at Hull as the Cleopatra for the Wilson and Furness-Leyland Line, a combined passenger ship and cattle carrier with watertight bulkheads and eight lifeboats, and bought by the Atlantic Transport Line. After a troubled maiden voyage from London to New York in 1898 she was repaired, renamed Mohegan, and was lost on the Manacles on 14 October 1898.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Attributed to the Gibsons of Scilly, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
PS General Slocum Named ship
A View of the General Slocum on Fire off North Brother Island, 15 June 1904
Photographer Unknown photographer
Source Published in Harper's, 24 June 1904
Medium Photograph, published in Harper's
The General Slocum was carrying the congregation of St Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church, German-American families from Manhattan's Little Germany, to their annual picnic when she caught fire in the East River on 15 June 1904. The photograph published in Harper's shows her burning off North Brother Island with a fireboat on the scene, the excursion steamer of summer outings turned into a pyre. An estimated 1,021 of the 1,342 people aboard died. Until Titanic, it was the worst maritime disaster of the century.
“A view of the General Slocum on fire off North Brother Island”
The real ship General Slocum was a side-wheel passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn in 1891 for New York excursion work. She burned and sank at North Brother Island on 15 June 1904; it remains the worst maritime disaster in the history of New York City.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Ellis Island ferry boat Unnamed
Italian Family on Ferry Boat, Leaving Ellis Island, New York, 1905
Photographer Lewis Hine (1874 to 1940)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2014.554.20)
Medium Lantern slide
Hine led his sociology classes from the Ethical Culture School to Ellis Island, photographing the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day, and between 1904 and 1909 he made more than 200 plates there. This lantern slide shows an Italian family on the ferry boat as they leave the island for New York. The boat is the last vessel of a long journey, the threshold between the island and a new life. Hine came to see documentary photography as a tool for social change, and slides like this one served that purpose.
The vessels An unnamed New York harbour ferry of the kind that carried immigrants away from Ellis Island.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
An Atlantic emigrant liner (unidentified) Unnamed
Immigrants on an Atlantic Liner, 1906
Photographer Edwin Levick (1869 to 1929)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (Prints and Photographs Division, LCCN 97501073)
Medium Photographic print
Levick, a noted New York maritime photographer, looked down on the open deck of an Atlantic liner packed shoulder to shoulder with emigrants in coats, caps and shawls, a year before Stieglitz made The Steerage. Here the ship is not a silhouette but a crowded floor: rigging, lifeboats and ventilators frame a sea of faces. It is the ocean liner seen from below the saloon, among the people who filled her lower decks and her crossings.
The vessels The liner is not named in the Library of Congress record. Atlantic liners of the early twentieth century carried large numbers of emigrants in the cheapest class of passage.
Sources Library of Congress · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
HMS Dreadnought Named ship
The Launch of HMS Dreadnought at Portsmouth Dockyard, February 1906
Photographer Symonds and Co.
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Q 41435)
Medium Photograph
The ship whose name became a byword for a whole generation of battleships was launched at Portsmouth after only four months on the ways. King Edward VII christened her with a bottle of Australian wine that took several blows to break against the bow. The launch had been planned as a large festive occasion, but the court was in mourning, so a more sober ceremony marked the arrival of a revolution in naval power, the first battleship driven by steam turbines.
The real ship Dreadnought was built at Portsmouth Dockyard at great speed and launched on 10 February 1906. She was the first battleship to use steam turbines, following Charles Parsons' demonstration of the Turbinia at Spithead in 1897.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Symonds and Co., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
A merchant steamer's rudder in dock, Liverpool Unnamed
The Rudder, Liverpool, 1906
Photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882 to 1966)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (33.43.199)
Medium Gum bichromate over platinum print
Coburn, a young Boston-born photographer whose work Stieglitz published in Camera Work, spent 1905 and much of 1906 in England, and in 1906 showed his pictures in Liverpool. In The Rudder he turns his lens on the great blade on which a whole ship turns, printed in the soft, layered tones of gum over platinum. Stieglitz kept this print in his own collection, and a halftone of the same picture is with it at the Met. A single piece of a ship's gear becomes the whole subject, a port seen through one working part.
The vessels The vessel is unidentified: a ship in the port of Liverpool in 1906.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
USS Kansas and USS Vermont (the Great White Fleet) Named ship
The Atlantic Fleet Steaming in Column, Departing Hampton Roads, December 1907
Photographer C. E. Waterman, Hampton, Virginia
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 92091)
Medium Photograph
In December 1907 the sixteen battleships of the United States Atlantic Fleet, hulls painted a stark white, set out on a voyage around the globe ordered by Theodore Roosevelt to display the nation's new naval power. Waterman, a photographer from Hampton, Virginia, recorded the line steaming in column, probably as it left Hampton Roads, with Kansas leading Vermont. Black smoke pours back from every funnel over the long procession of white hulls, and the whole purpose of the voyage is there in one frame.
The real ship The Great White Fleet of sixteen battleships sailed around the globe from 16 December 1907 to 22 February 1909 by order of President Roosevelt. Kansas (BB-21) and Vermont (BB-20) were among its battleships.
Sources Naval History and Heritage Command · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: C. E. Waterman, Hampton, Virginia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Lusitania Named ship
Lusitania Arriving in New York on her Maiden Voyage, 13 September 1907
Photographer Bain News Service (George Grantham Bain Collection)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (Bain Collection, cph.3a10885)
Medium Photograph
On 13 September 1907 Cunard's new Lusitania arrived in New York at the end of her maiden voyage, sailing past Battery Park while crowds packed the waterfront below. She was then the largest passenger ship in the world, and that year she won the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing, held by German ships for a decade. Seen from above, the liner glides behind the ferry piers, smoke trailing across the harbour. Eight years later her sinking off Ireland would help turn American opinion towards war, and this arrival gained a weight no one watching could have imagined.
The real ship Lusitania was launched for Cunard in 1906 and briefly the largest passenger ship in the world; she won the Blue Riband in 1907. On 7 May 1915 she was torpedoed by U-20 off the Old Head of Kinsale and sank in about 18 minutes, with the loss of 1,198 lives.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Bain News Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Mauretania Named ship
Mauretania at Full Speed on the Measured Mile, 1907
Photographer Unknown photographer (Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson collection)
Where to see it Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums, Newcastle (DS.SWH/4/PH/7/6)
Medium Photograph
Mauretania was built for Cunard by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson at Wallsend on the Tyne, and this photograph from the builders' records shows her at full speed on the measured mile in 1907. Dense black smoke pours back from her four funnels and a white wave curls from her stem as she drives through calm water close to the shore. The picture belongs to shipbuilding collections added to UNESCO's UK Memory of the World register. It shows the ship that would hold both Atlantic speed records for twenty years, proving her speed for the first time.
The real ship Mauretania was built for Cunard by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson at Wallsend and launched in 1906. She took the eastbound Blue Riband in December 1907 and the westbound record in 1909, holding both for 20 years; she served as a hospital ship and troopship in the First World War, was retired in September 1934 and scrapped at Rosyth in 1935.
Sources flickr.com · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Unknown author, No known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Kaiser Wilhelm II Named ship
The Steerage, 1907
Photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864 to 1946)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (33.43.419)
Medium Photogravure
In June 1907 Stieglitz sailed for Europe in first class aboard Kaiser Wilhelm II, one of the largest and fastest ships in the world, and looked down from the upper deck on the steerage passengers below. He ran to his cabin for his camera, found he had only one glass plate prepared, and made a single exposure. The liner gives the picture its bones: a white gangway bridge cutting across, a mast with its cargo booms rising into the sky, stairs and iron machinery framing the crowd. The Met calls it his signature work, proclaimed as his first modernist photograph.
“I saw shapes related to each other. I was inspired by a picture of shapes and underlying that the feeling I had about life.”
The real ship Kaiser Wilhelm II was launched at Stettin on 12 August 1902 for Norddeutscher Lloyd and won the Blue Riband for the eastbound crossing in 1904. Laid up in New York from 1914, she was seized in 1917 and became USS Agamemnon, later USAT Monticello, and was scrapped in 1940.
Image: Alfred Stieglitz, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
HMS Dreadnought Named ship
HMS Dreadnought with Awning Rigged, Anchored in the Thames Estuary, July 1909
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (P30)
Medium Glass plate negative (gelatine dry plate)
Dreadnought's entry into service in 1906 was such an advance that her name came to stand for a whole generation of battleships. The National Maritime Museum's plate shows her from the port quarter at anchor off Southend in July 1909 for the Thames Naval Review, awning rigged amidships and aft, boat booms out and ensigns flying, with the Admiralty despatch vessel Surprise to the right. Small boats pull around her in a choppy sea. It is a peacetime show, the ship whose launch had helped spark a naval arms race with Germany now on public display.
The real ship Dreadnought, credited to Admiral Sir John Fisher, entered service in 1906 as the first battleship of her era with a uniform main battery of 12-inch guns and the first capital ship powered by steam turbines, the fastest battleship in the world on completion.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic (under construction) Named ship
Keel Supports for Olympic and Titanic, Harland and Wolff, 8 May 1909
Photographer Robert John Welch (1859 to 1936)
Where to see it National Museums NI, Harland and Wolff Collection, Belfast (HOYFM.HW.H1330)
Medium Glass plate negative
Welch was hired by Harland and Wolff to photograph the building of Olympic, Titanic and Britannic, and on 8 May 1909 he recorded the keel structure for the first of the sisters taking shape beneath the great steel gantry at the Belfast slips. There is no hull yet, only the long spine of the bottom structure on its supports and the lattice of the gantry overhead, sharp in the sunlight. A photographer better known for Irish landscapes, megaliths and natural history brought the same clear eye to the birth of the largest ships of their day.
The real ship Olympic and Titanic were built side by side at Harland and Wolff, Belfast, for the White Star Line; Titanic was lost on her maiden voyage in April 1912.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Robert John Welch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
New York harbour ferry boat Unnamed
The Ferry Boat, 1910
Photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864 to 1946)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (58.577.29; another print titled After Working Hours, The Ferry Boat, 49.55.12)
Medium Photogravure
In 1910 Stieglitz photographed one of the steam ferries of New York harbour at the end of the working day, the version the Met titles After Working Hours, The Ferry Boat. The boat pulls away from the slip packed with commuters in straw hats, its tall black funnel and pilot house softened by haze, while a cluster of pale pilings fills the foreground. The composition is built from the curve of the piles and the broad stern of the ferry, and the crowd turns an ordinary crossing into a picture of the modern city on the move.
The vessels An unnamed steam ferry of New York harbour, a double-ended passenger boat of the kind that carried commuters across the rivers in the early twentieth century.
Sources The Met · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Preussen Named ship
The Five-Masted Ship Preussen Ashore near Dover, 1910
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it State Library of Victoria, Melbourne (H99.220/2132)
Medium Photograph
Preussen, built for the Hamburg firm of F. Laeisz, was the only five-masted full-rigged ship of her time, and she came to grief not off Cape Horn but in the Channel. On the night of 5 November 1910 the cross-Channel steamer Brighton tried to cross her bows and rammed her, carrying away her bowsprit and fore topgallant mast. A November gale defeated attempts to bring her into Dover, both anchor chains broke, and she was driven onto the rocks of Crab Bay. The photograph of the stranded giant beneath the chalk reads like the end of the age of sail.
The real ship Preussen was built by Joh. C. Tecklenborg at Geestemünde and launched on 7 May 1902 for F. Laeisz of Hamburg, sailing on her maiden voyage to Iquique in Chile. With her keel broken at Crab Bay she could not be salvaged; the master of Brighton was found responsible and lost his licence, and a few of her ribs still show at low spring tides.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Mauretania Named ship
Outward Bound, The Mauretania, 1910
Photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864 to 1946)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (49.55.10); another print in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-F-2005-107-226)
Medium Photogravure
Three years after The Steerage, Stieglitz turned his camera on Cunard's Mauretania in New York harbour: beyond a row of white bollards on the pier, the long four-funnelled liner lies on grey water. He published the picture in Camera Work in October 1911, in an issue of sixteen photogravures he called snapshots, in which, the Met writes, he declared his allegiance to straight photography. The liner carries that argument: no soft focus, no painterly haze, a modern machine in a modern harbour, the romance of the crossing without a single passenger in view.
“Stieglitz announced his allegiance with the new credo of ‘straight photography’”
The real ship Mauretania was built by Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson at Wallsend on the Tyne and launched in 1906. She took the eastbound Blue Riband in December 1907 and the westbound record in 1909, holding both for twenty years, served as a troopship and hospital ship in the First World War, and was scrapped at Rosyth in 1935.
Sources The Met · Rijksmuseum · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Terra Nova Named ship
Ponting Cinematographs the Bow of the Terra Nova Breaking through the Ice Floes, 1910 to 1911
Photographer Herbert Ponting (1870 to 1935)
Medium Photograph (published in Scott's Last Expedition, 1913)
Ponting wanted film of Terra Nova's bow cleaving the ice floes, so the bosun and Petty Officer Williamson rigged planks ten feet out from the starboard side of the forecastle. This photograph shows him lying at the end of them, his camera on its tilting table hung in ropes above the sea, a sailor watching from the rail as the ship pushes into the pack. He wrote that he hung on as the ship bumped into the floes, gripping the camera with one arm and turning the handle with the other. It is a portrait of the old whaler forcing her way south and of an early Antarctic film-maker at work.
“Spread-eagling myself on the end of these planks, I had a field of view clear under the overhanging prow.”
The real ship Terra Nova was built in 1884 for the Dundee whaling and sealing fleet and carried Scott's British Antarctic Expedition of 1910; she returned to sealing off Newfoundland and in September 1943, damaged off Greenland, was set alight after her crew were rescued and sunk by gunfire.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Herbert Ponting, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Terra Nova and Fram Named ship
Scott's Expedition Ship Terra Nova Visiting Fram in the Bay of Whales, February 1911
Photographer Amundsen's South Pole expedition
Where to see it National Archives of Norway (Riksarkivet), Oslo
Medium Photograph
Returning westward along the edge of the Great Ice Barrier in February 1911, Scott's Terra Nova came upon Amundsen's expedition camped in the Bay of Whales. Amundsen was courteous and hospitable, and Terra Nova went back to Cape Evans with the news. This photograph, taken by the Norwegian expedition, sets the two ships in one frame: Fram's dark hull and rigging close at the left, dog teams and sledges on the ice, and Terra Nova lying off beyond them. It shows both rivals for the Pole together, months before one party would triumph and the other die on the way home.
The real ship Fram, designed and built by Colin Archer and launched in 1892, carried Amundsen's South Pole expedition and is preserved at the Fram Museum in Oslo. Terra Nova, a Dundee whaler of 1884, carried Scott's expedition and was sunk off Greenland in 1943.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Amundsen's South Pole expedition, No known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Terra Nova Named ship
The Terra Nova Icebound, c. 1911
Photographer Herbert Ponting (1870 to 1935)
Where to see it Private collection (sold at Christie's, London, 8 October 2014, sale 5506, lot 102)
Medium Blue-toned carbon print
Ponting sailed with Scott's last expedition, the first time a professional photographer was taken on an Antarctic expedition, and he preferred glass plates to film for the quality they gave his icescapes. In this large print, signed and titled by him in pencil, Terra Nova rises above a wind-carved ridge of ice, her canvas hanging loose from the yards and her crew small figures along the rail. Ponting also filmed the voyage with one of the first portable cinematographs used in Antarctica, and his images of the ship shaped how the expedition would be remembered.
The real ship Terra Nova was built in 1884 for the Dundee whaling and sealing fleet, helped free Scott's Discovery from McMurdo Sound in 1903, and carried the British Antarctic Expedition of 1910. She returned to sealing off Newfoundland and in September 1943, damaged and taking water off Greenland, was set alight after her crew were rescued and sunk by gunfire.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Herbert Ponting, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Terra Nova Named ship
The Terra Nova off Cape Evans with Capsizing Berg, January 1911
Photographer Herbert Ponting (1870 to 1935), attributed
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (PXA 157, album annotated by T. Griffith Taylor)
Medium Vintage photographic print (album)
In January 1911 Terra Nova lay off Cape Evans on Ross Island while the shore party set up the expedition's winter camp. Here she is moored at the edge of the sea ice beside a great berg that has turned over, its underside worn smooth and hung with icicles, while tiny figures work on the floe beyond. The print comes from an album of the expedition annotated by the geologist Griffith Taylor. Few pictures show so plainly the scale of the ice that surrounded the little whaler, yards bare, in her Antarctic anchorage.
The real ship Terra Nova was built in 1884 for the Dundee whaling and sealing fleet and carried Scott's British Antarctic Expedition of 1910; she was abandoned and sunk off Greenland in 1943.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Herbert Ponting, No known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Mildred Named ship
The Masts and Sails of the Schooner Mildred Submerged off Gurnard's Head, April 1912
Photographer Gibson and Sons of Scilly
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (G14011, Gibsons of Scilly Shipwreck Collection)
Medium Glass plate negative
The Gibsons of Scilly photographed shipwrecks, and their shipwreck collection is now at the National Maritime Museum. Here the wooden schooner Mildred has sunk in Treen Cove, close to Gurnard's Head, yet her jibs, mainsail and fore topsail are still set, standing out of a quiet sea above a hull that has vanished completely. The effect is uncanny: a ship still under sail with nothing beneath her. She had run aground in dense fog at midnight on 6 April 1912.
The real ship Mildred was a wooden three-masted schooner built in 1889. On passage from Newport to London with a cargo of basic slag, she ran aground in dense fog near Gurnard's Head in Cornwall at midnight on 6 April 1912 and sank in Treen Cove.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Gibson and Sons of Scilly, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Titanic's lifeboats Named ship
Rescued Lifeboats, All That Is Left from the Great Ship Titanic, New York, April 1912
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane (1-169523)
Medium Photographic print
When Carpathia reached New York on the evening of 18 April 1912 she first stopped at the White Star Line's Pier 59 and offloaded thirteen of Titanic's lifeboats before going on to the Cunard pier to land the survivors. Here the empty boats lie in a row beside a pier shed, a few men standing in them. They are the only part of the great ship that ever reached New York, and the title printed with the photograph says so plainly. Small open boats, they carry the whole weight of the disaster.
“Rescued lifeboats, all that is left from the great ship Titanic”
The real ship Titanic carried twenty lifeboats, enough for 1,178 people. Carpathia took thirteen of them aboard and offloaded them at the White Star Line's Pier 59 in New York; their later fate is not recorded.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic Named ship
Sister Ships Olympic and Titanic, Belfast, 6 March 1912
Photographer Robert John Welch (1859 to 1936)
Where to see it National Museums NI, Belfast (Welch negative H1637)
Medium Photograph (glass plate, Welch no. H1637)
Robert Welch, hired by Harland and Wolff to photograph the building of its great liners, caught the two sisters together at Belfast on 6 March 1912. Olympic had lost a propeller and needed the dry dock, so Titanic, still being fitted out, had to be moved out to make room for her. For a moment the two ships lay side by side, almost identical, one already in service and one yet to sail. Seen now, the pairing carries a weight Welch could not have known.
The real ship Olympic and Titanic were built side by side by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line; Olympic entered service first, and Titanic, the second of the three Olympic-class liners, sank on her maiden voyage in April 1912.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Robert John Welch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Carpathia Named ship
Survivors of Titanic aboard Carpathia, April 1912
Photographer Bain News Service (George Grantham Bain Collection)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (George Grantham Bain Collection, LCCN 2001704332)
Medium Photographic print
On an open deck of the Cunard steamer Carpathia, a group of Titanic survivors stands wrapped in dark coats, safe at last. Carpathia had raced through the ice field in the night, arrived two hours after the sinking and taken more than 700 people from the lifeboats. The picture carries none of the drama of the wreck, only its aftermath: a working liner suddenly turned into a place of waiting. She reached New York in heavy rain on the evening of 18 April 1912.
The real ship Carpathia was built by Swan and Hunter at Wallsend and made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Boston in 1903. After the Titanic rescue her captain, Arthur Rostron, was knighted; she was torpedoed three times by U-55 off the southern Irish coast on 17 July 1918, with the loss of five crew.
Sources Library of Congress · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Bain News Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Titanic Named ship
Titanic Leaving Queenstown, 11 April 1912
Photographer Francis Browne (1880 to 1960)
Medium Photograph
Browne, a young Jesuit, was given a ticket by his uncle for the first legs of Titanic's maiden voyage, from Southampton to Queenstown by way of Cherbourg, and photographed life aboard with tireless curiosity. Offered a passage on to New York by fellow passengers, he asked his superior's permission and was refused. On 11 April he left the ship at Queenstown, and this picture shows the liner lying off the Irish coast that day, a small boat in the foreground. When news of the sinking came, his photographs appeared in publications around the world, and this quiet view became one of farewell.
“GET OFF THAT SHIP”
The real ship Titanic was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line, the second of the three Olympic-class liners and the largest ship afloat when she entered service. On her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York she struck an iceberg and sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912; of about 2,208 people aboard, some 1,500 died.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Titanic Named ship
SS Titanic Leaving Southampton, April 1912
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Medium Photograph
Titanic's maiden voyage began shortly after noon on 10 April 1912, when she left Southampton for New York, and this print from the National Maritime Museum records her going. Across the top someone has written in ink that she is leaving Southampton on her first and last voyage, words added once the outcome was known. Below them the liner moves out past tugs and small craft, immense, new and untroubled. The picture's power lies in that gap between the calm of the moment and the handwriting above it.
The real ship Titanic was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line, the second of the three Olympic-class liners and the largest ship afloat when she entered service. On her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York she struck an iceberg and sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912; of about 2,208 people aboard, some 1,500 died.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Unknown author, No known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Titanic's Lifeboat 14 and Collapsible D Named ship
Titanic Lifeboat No. 14 Approaching Carpathia with Collapsible D in Tow, 15 April 1912
Photographer Louis Mansfield Ogden (1867 to 1946)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (Lord MacQuitty Collection, LMQ/1/12/1)
Medium Photograph
Louis Ogden photographed the scene of the Titanic disaster from the deck of Cunard's Carpathia on the morning of 15 April 1912. Here Lifeboat 14 comes towards the ship with Collapsible D in tow, the survivors crowded low in the boats on a grey, rippled sea. These small open boats are all that remained of the largest ship afloat. Carpathia reached the scene about an hour and a half after the sinking and took aboard all 710 survivors, and Ogden's set of twelve pictures, now at the National Maritime Museum, records that rescue as it happened.
“the scene of the TITANIC disaster, taken from the deck of the CARPATHIA”
The real ship Lifeboat 14 and Collapsible D were among the boats carried by Titanic. Carpathia, a Cunard liner, arrived about an hour and a half after the sinking and had rescued all 710 survivors by 09.15 on 15 April 1912.
Sources Royal Museums Greenwich · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Louis Mansfield Ogden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Titanic's Lifeboat 6 Named ship
Titanic's Lifeboat 6 Rowing towards Carpathia, 15 April 1912
Photographer Louis Mansfield Ogden (1867 to 1946)
Where to see it National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (LMQ/1/12/1/1-12)
Medium Photograph
Taken by Louis Ogden from the deck of Carpathia, this is one of the few photographs of Titanic's boats at the moment of rescue. Lifeboat 6, launched at 12.55 am with room for 65, holds about two dozen people; among them was Margaret Brown, with Quartermaster Robert Hichens in charge and the lookout Frederick Fleet. Seen from high above, the small white boat is alone on a wide, choppy sea. It tells the story of the half-empty lifeboats in a single image.
The real ship Lifeboat 6 was one of Titanic's wooden lifeboats, launched from the port side by Captain Smith and Second Officer Lightoller at 12.55 am on 15 April 1912. It was one of the last boats to reach Carpathia, coming alongside at 8 am.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Louis Mansfield Ogden, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Titanic Named ship
Titanic's Starboard Anchor Being Raised, Queenstown, 11 April 1912
Photographer Francis Browne (1880 to 1960)
Medium Photograph
Browne took this as he disembarked at Queenstown on the tender Ireland: the side of Titanic seen from close below, her starboard anchor being raised on its chain, water pouring from outlets in the plating. It is the view of someone who has just stepped off, looking along the vast riveted hull. On board he had photographed the gymnasium, the Marconi room, his own cabin and passengers on the decks. This is his last close view of the ship before she sailed for New York without him.
The real ship Titanic was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line, the second of the three Olympic-class liners and the largest ship afloat when she entered service. On her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York she struck an iceberg and sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912; of about 2,208 people aboard, some 1,500 died.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
HMS Audacious Named ship
The Crew of HMS Audacious Being Taken Off, 27 October 1914
Photographer Unknown photographer (passenger aboard RMS Olympic)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Q 75585)
Medium Photograph
This is the loss the Admiralty tried to hide. The new dreadnought Audacious struck a German mine off the coast of County Donegal, and the White Star liner Olympic came to help, her boats joining those of the cruiser Liverpool to take off the crew while her captain proposed a tow. Many Americans aboard Olympic were beyond British jurisdiction, and they took photographs and even a moving picture. For the rest of the war Audacious stayed on the public lists as if nothing had happened, while pictures like this showed her sinking.
The real ship Audacious was the fourth and last King George V-class dreadnought, completed in 1913. She struck a mine on 27 October 1914 and sank after towing attempts failed; her crew were saved, but a petty officer on the cruiser Liverpool was killed when she later exploded. She remains the largest warship ever sunk by a naval mine.
Sources Imperial War Museums · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Storstad Named ship
The Storstad's Crushed Bow after the Collision with the Empress of Ireland, 1914
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it Private collection
Medium Photograph
The Empress of Ireland was gone in fourteen minutes. This photograph shows the other ship in the story: the Norwegian collier Storstad, which struck the liner's starboard side amidships in fog in the St Lawrence at 1.56 am on 29 May 1914. Her bow is crushed and torn open, her name still legible on the hull and men on deck behind the damage. Storstad stayed afloat; the liner took 1,012 of the 1,477 people aboard with her. The broken stem shows the force of the blow.
The real ship Storstad was a Norwegian collier. The Empress of Ireland, built by Fairfield at Govan on the Clyde, sank near the mouth of the St Lawrence on 29 May 1914 on passage to Liverpool, the worst peacetime maritime disaster in Canadian history.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SMS Emden Named ship
The Wreck of SMS Emden on North Keeling Island, c. 1914 to 1919
Photographer Allan C. Green (1878 to 1954)
Where to see it State Library of Victoria, Melbourne (Allan C. Green collection)
Medium Photograph
For two months in 1914 the light cruiser Emden raided the Indian Ocean, capturing nearly two dozen ships and attacking Penang. It ended at the Cocos Islands on 9 November, when HMAS Sydney caught her, shredded her superstructure and shot away her two rearmost funnels and her foremast; Captain von Müller ran her onto the reef of North Keeling Island to save his crew. Green's photograph shows the battered hull beyond the surf, a group of men standing on the shore before it, a wreck the sea was already taking apart.
The real ship Emden was built at the Kaiserliche Werft in Danzig, launched in May 1908, and served mainly with the East Asia Squadron at Qingdao. Run onto the reef on 9 November 1914, her wreck had almost completely broken up by 1919; the remains were broken up in situ by a Japanese salvage company in the early 1950s.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SMS Blücher Named ship
SMS Blücher Capsizing at the Battle of Dogger Bank, 24 January 1915
Photographer Unidentified photographer aboard HMS Arethusa
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Q 22687); US National Archives (ARC 533748)
Medium Photograph
Taken from the deck of the British cruiser Arethusa, this photograph shows the German armoured cruiser Blücher rolling over in her last minutes, her crew crowded along the side of the upturned hull, her guns pointing at the sky. Slowed by British gunfire, she was abandoned by her squadron and struck by 70 to 100 heavy shells and several torpedoes before capsizing at 13.13. British destroyers closing to rescue survivors withdrew when a German zeppelin, mistaking the dying Blücher for a British battlecruiser, tried to bomb them.
The real ship Blücher was the last armoured cruiser built for the Imperial German Navy, at the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel between 1907 and 1909. She was sunk at the Battle of Dogger Bank on 24 January 1915, the only ship lost in the engagement; estimates of her dead range from 747 to around 1,000.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Photographer aboard HMS Arethusa, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Endurance Named ship
Dogs and the Crushed Endurance, Ocean Camp, Weddell Sea, November 1915
Photographer Frank Hurley (1885 to 1962)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (Slides 22/13)
Medium Glass lantern slide
After the pressure of the ice crushed her, the crew abandoned Endurance and camped on the floe, and Hurley photographed what was left of her from Ocean Camp, with the expedition's sledge dogs in the foreground. Wrecked and held in the ice, she still dominates the frame. It is a photograph of an ending, taken shortly before she slipped under on 21 November 1915, and it carries a strange mixture of loss and endurance.
The real ship Endurance was built as Polaris at the Framnæs shipyard in Sandefjord, Norway, and launched in December 1912; Shackleton bought her in January 1914 for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Trapped in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea, she was crushed on 27 October 1915 and sank on 21 November; her wreck was found in March 2022 at a depth of 3,008 metres.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Endurance Named ship
Endurance under Sail Trying to Break through the Pack Ice, Weddell Sea, 1915
Photographer Frank Hurley (1885 to 1962)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (ON 26)
Medium Paget process colour plate
Before the ice closed around her, Endurance tried to force her way through the pack towards Vahsel Bay, and Hurley recorded her with her square sails set among the floes. He made it on a Paget plate, one of the early colour processes he used in Antarctica, so the scene survives with a trace of real blue sky and white ice. The picture shows the ship at her most purposeful, a wooden vessel pressing into a frozen sea, and it gains its force from what we know came next.
The real ship Endurance was built as Polaris at the Framnæs shipyard in Sandefjord, Norway, and launched in December 1912; Shackleton bought her in January 1914 for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Trapped in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea, she was crushed on 27 October 1915 and sank on 21 November; her wreck was found in March 2022 at a depth of 3,008 metres.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
HMS Irresistible Named ship
The Last Moments of the Irresistible, Dardanelles, 18 March 1915
Photographer Royal Navy photographer aboard HMS Lord Nelson (unidentified)
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington (copy)
Medium Photograph, published in The War Illustrated, 1 May 1915
On 18 March 1915, the day the Allied fleet tried to force the Narrows, Irresistible struck a mine that flooded her and stopped her engines, and she drifted helplessly under the Turkish guns. Photographed from the battleship Lord Nelson, she lies listing heavily and abandoned in the strait, smoke rising from her. The War Illustrated printed the photograph that May with a caption of its time, all tragic glory; what the ship brings is the end of an old navy's certainty, a battleship of 1898 undone by a mine in a narrow sea.
“This impressive photograph, replete with the tragic glory of war, shows the ill-fated Irresistible”
The real ship Irresistible was laid down at Chatham in April 1898, launched that December and completed in 1901. Sent to the Dardanelles in February 1915, she was mined on 18 March; the destroyer Wear took off most of her crew under fire, attempts by HMS Ocean to tow her failed, and she sank with around 150 of her men killed. Ocean was herself mined the same day.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Royal Navy photographer aboard HMS Lord Nelson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Lusitania Named ship
The Last Photograph of Lusitania, Leaving New York, 1 May 1915
Photographer G. R. Rance
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Q 48349)
Medium Photograph
Taken from HMS Glory in New York harbour as Lusitania steamed out on 1 May 1915, this is the last known photograph of the liner before she was torpedoed off the Old Head of Kinsale six days later. She sailed the day after a German embassy warning had appeared in the newspapers, in some cases beside Cunard's own advertisement. Seen from far off she is only a long hull and four funnels on grey water, a great ship doing her ordinary work. For anyone who knows what followed, the calm of the picture is hard to bear.
The real ship Lusitania was launched for Cunard in 1906 and took the Blue Riband in 1907. The German submarine U-20 torpedoed her on 7 May 1915, about 11 nautical miles off the Old Head of Kinsale; she sank in 18 minutes, and only 763 of the 1,960 people aboard survived, about 128 of the dead being American. The sinking contributed to the United States entering the war in 1917.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Endurance Named ship
A Mid Winter Glow, Weddell Sea (showing the Endurance), 1915
Photographer Frank Hurley (1885 to 1962)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney
Medium Glass Paget plate phototransparency (colour)
Hurley made many pioneering colour images of the Endurance expedition with the Paget process, and here it catches what black and white could not: the lilac and rose glow of a winter sky over the frozen Weddell Sea. Endurance sits small and dark among ridges of pressure ice, her masts a fine tracery against the light, with a channel of open water in the foreground. The colour gives the trapped ship a tender, painterly beauty in the months when her crew still waited on the ice.
The real ship Endurance, a three-masted barquentine originally named Polaris, was built at the Framnæs shipyard in Sandefjord, Norway, and launched in 1912; Shackleton bought her in January 1914. Trapped in pack ice, she sank in the Weddell Sea on 21 November 1915, and her wreck was found on 5 March 2022 at a depth of 3,008 metres.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Frank Hurley, No known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Endurance Named ship
The Rigging of the Endurance Encrusted with Rime Crystals, 1915
Photographer Frank Hurley (1885 to 1962)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney
Medium Glass Paget plate phototransparency (colour)
Frozen into the Weddell Sea, Endurance grew a coat of ice: every shroud, stay and ratline is thickened with white rime crystals against a deep blue sky. Hurley recorded it on a Paget colour plate, one of the pioneering colour images he made on the expedition, looking up from the deck into the masts, with a ship's boat slung on its davits in the foreground. It is an intimate picture, almost a still life, the familiar ropes of a working ship turned into something strange and beautiful while she lay trapped in the ice.
The real ship Endurance, a three-masted barquentine originally named Polaris, was built at the Framnæs shipyard in Sandefjord, Norway, and launched in 1912; Shackleton bought her in January 1914. Trapped in pack ice, she sank in the Weddell Sea on 21 November 1915, and her wreck was found on 5 March 2022 at a depth of 3,008 metres.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Frank Hurley, No known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Endurance Named ship
Shackleton's Ship Endurance Illuminated at Night, Weddell Sea, 1915
Photographer Frank Hurley (1885 to 1962)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (PXA 715)
Medium Gelatin silver print
In 1915, with Endurance held fast in the ice of the Weddell Sea through the dark Antarctic winter, Hurley lit the ship at night with twenty flashes. Every rope and spar, coated in rime, stands out white against the black sky, as if the ship were made of frost. It is a portrait of Shackleton's ship taken while she still seemed safe; before the year was out the ice would crush her. When she was lost Hurley saved 120 of his glass plate negatives and smashed about 400 others.
The real ship Endurance was built as Polaris at the Framnæs shipyard in Sandefjord, Norway, and launched in December 1912; Shackleton bought her in January 1914 for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Trapped in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea, she was crushed on 27 October 1915 and sank on 21 November; her wreck was found in March 2022 at a depth of 3,008 metres.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Eastland Named ship
The Steamer Eastland Being Righted in the Chicago River, 14 August 1915
Photographer Chicago Daily News photographer
Where to see it Chicago History Museum, Chicago Daily News negatives collection (DN-0064980); copy in the Library of Congress
Medium Glass plate negative
On the morning of 24 July 1915 the Eastland, loaded with 2,500 passengers from Western Electric's Hawthorne Works bound for a company picnic, rolled onto her port side while still at the wharf between Clark and LaSalle Streets, in water only 6 metres deep. 844 people died within sight of the city centre. A Chicago Daily News photographer made this plate three weeks later, on the day she was raised: the hull still on its side, cranes, tugs and smoke around her, the ship now a salvage job in the middle of a working river.
The real ship Eastland was built by the Jenks Ship Building Company of Port Huron, Michigan, after an order of 1902. After the disaster she was raised on 14 August 1915, sold to the Illinois Naval Reserve, converted into the gunboat USS Wilmette and used for training on the Great Lakes until she was scrapped after the Second World War.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Chicago Daily News photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
James Caird Named ship
Party Leaving on the James Caird, Elephant Island, 24 April 1916
Photographer Frank Hurley (1885 to 1962)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (Slides 22/48)
Medium Glass lantern slide
On 24 April 1916 Shackleton and five companions set out from Elephant Island in the James Caird, a 22.5-foot boat from Endurance, to sail 1,300 kilometres across the Southern Ocean to South Georgia for help. Hurley photographed the men left behind on the beach, waving their caps as the boat grew small on the sea. Many historians regard the voyage as the greatest small-boat journey ever completed. The picture is all hope and risk, a tiny hull against the vastness of the sea.
The real ship James Caird was one of the three boats saved from Endurance, named by Shackleton after Sir James Key Caird, the Dundee philanthropist whose sponsorship helped finance the expedition. She reached the south coast of South Georgia after a voyage of 17 days, and has been displayed at Dulwich College since 1922.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
Yelcho Named ship
Relieving of Marooned Men by Chilean Tug Yelcho, Elephant Island, 1916
Photographer Frank Hurley (1885 to 1962)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (Slides 22)
Medium Glass lantern slide
After three failed attempts in other ships, Shackleton came back for his men on Elephant Island aboard the small Chilean Navy tug Yelcho, commanded by Luis Pardo. On 30 August 1916 the fog lifted, the camp was sighted, and within an hour a small boat, in two trips, had brought the whole Elephant Island party aboard. No vessel in the Endurance story is humbler, and none more welcome: a tug built on the Clyde for towing and lighthouse supply, bringing the long wait to an end.
The real ship Yelcho was built in 1906 by Geo. Brown and Co. of Greenock on the Clyde as a tug and cargo vessel for a Chilean company, and sold in 1908 to the Chilean Navy, which used her at Punta Arenas as a tug and to supply the lighthouses. Under Captain Luis Pardo she rescued the Elephant Island party on 30 August 1916.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
RMS Olympic (HMT Olympic) Named ship
HMT Olympic in Dazzle Camouflage, c. 1917 to 1918
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Q 21592)
Medium Photograph
Titanic's elder sister spent the First World War as the troopship HMT Olympic, which earned her the nickname Old Reliable, and like many ships she was painted in dazzle, a scheme meant to mislead an enemy about her course. This photograph, held by the Imperial War Museums, shows the familiar four-funnelled profile broken by sweeping curves and wedges of light and dark that run across hull and funnels alike. During that service she rammed and sank the submarine U-103. The same hull that recalls Titanic's elegance here becomes a piece of wartime abstraction.
The real ship Olympic, lead ship of the White Star Line's three Olympic-class liners, was built at Belfast and served from 1911 to 1935, including service as the troopship HMT Olympic in the First World War, when she rammed and sank U-103. She was withdrawn on 12 April 1935 and her scrapping was completed by 1939.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
USS Leviathan (formerly SS Vaterland) Named ship
Leviathan Leaving for France with 11,000 American Troops, 1917 to 1918
Photographer US Army photographer (unidentified)
Source Reproduced in Mary C. Gillett, The Army Medical Department 1917 to 1941 (US Army Center of Military History)
Medium Photograph
Leviathan steams out for France with 11,000 soldiers aboard, the troopship farewell of 1917 and 1918 on the grandest scale. Her first transport voyage, in December 1917, took 7,250 men; the numbers grew to 10,500 by the summer of 1918 and, with double bunking, to 14,000, and she was fast enough to cross without escort. The German liner that had lain idle in American waters since 1914 was now carrying an army across the Atlantic.
The real ship Vaterland was launched on 3 April 1913 for the Hamburg America Line, laid up at Hoboken on the outbreak of war in 1914 and seized in 1917. As USS Leviathan she made ten round trips transporting more than 119,000 troops to Europe.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Army photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
HMS Intrepid, HMS Iphigenia and HMS Thetis Named ship
Aerial Photograph of the Blockships in the Canal Entrance after the Zeebrugge Raid, April 1918
Photographer Unidentified photographer (assumed Royal Naval Air Service)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Q 20648B)
Medium Aerial photograph
On 23 April 1918 the Royal Navy tried to block the port of Bruges-Zeebrugge by sinking old cruisers in the canal entrance. Seen from the air afterwards, the three blockships Intrepid, Iphigenia and Thetis lie where their crews scuttled them, small dark shapes in the channel between the piers. The photograph also holds the harder truth: the ships were sunk in the wrong place, and within a few days the Germans had opened the canal to submarines at high tide.
The real ship Intrepid, Iphigenia and Thetis were old cruisers stripped out at Chatham for use as blockships in the raid of 23 April 1918. Two of the three were scuttled in the narrowest part of the Bruges to Ostend canal.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
HMS Argus Named ship
HMS Argus in Dazzle Camouflage, 1918
Photographer Unknown photographer (US Navy)
Medium Photograph
Dazzle, credited to the marine artist Norman Wilkinson, was meant not to hide a ship but to mislead an enemy about her course. Few ships wore it more strikingly than Argus, photographed from the air in harbour in 1918 with a Renown-class battlecruiser in the distance. Her long, flat-sided hull becomes a field of bold stripes and curves under the bare flight deck. The picture catches the moment when war and modern art met: Picasso claimed that Cubists had invented dazzle, and Edward Wadsworth supervised the painting of over 2,000 ships.
The real ship Argus was converted from an ocean liner that was under construction when the First World War began, and became the first aircraft carrier with a full-length flight deck that allowed wheeled aircraft to take off and land. She served in the Royal Navy from 1918 to 1944.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
USS O'Brien (DD-51) and a troop transport Named ship
USS O'Brien Bringing in a Convoy, in Dazzle Camouflage, 1918
Photographer Unknown photographer (US Navy), taken from USS Pocahontas
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 82973)
Medium Photograph
Photographed from the transport Pocahontas in 1918, the destroyer O'Brien comes in with a convoy, and both she and the transport following her wear dazzle. Her crew crowd the forecastle and signal flags fly from her foremast as she cuts through calm water, sailing boats and a distant headland behind. The broken patches of light and dark across her hull and funnels break up her outline in exactly the way the scheme intended. It is dazzle seen in service, on a working warship at the end of an Atlantic crossing.
The real ship O'Brien, lead ship of her class, was laid down by William Cramp and Sons of Philadelphia in 1913 and launched in July 1914; after the United States entered the war in April 1917 she patrolled the Irish Sea from Queenstown. She was decommissioned in 1922 and sold for scrap in 1935.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SS Minnekahda Named ship
Steamship Minnekahda in Dazzle Camouflage, 4 December 1918
Photographer Second Lieutenant George H. Lyon
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Photograph
Three weeks after the Armistice, Second Lieutenant Lyon photographed the troopship Minnekahda from the liner George Washington as it left New York for Europe, while Minnekahda was coming in carrying American troops home. Soldiers line every rail of her long hull. Her dazzle, designed for a war that had just ended, slashes the whole ship in diagonal bands, and the picture holds the war's end in the passing of two ships going opposite ways.
The real ship Minnekahda was built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the Atlantic Transport Line: laid down in 1914, launched in 1917 and completed as a troopship in March 1918. She later worked as a cargo ship and, from 1921, a liner, and was scrapped in Scotland in 1936.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Second Lieutenant George H. Lyon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SMS Szent István Named ship
Szent István Capsizing off Premuda, 10 June 1918
Photographer Unidentified photographer (Austro-Hungarian Navy; image courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (courtesy of the International Naval Research Organization)
Medium Photograph and film still
Two torpedoes from the Italian motor torpedo boat MAS 15 were enough. For about three hours Szent István's crew fought the flooding while her sister Tegetthoff stood by, and film footage and photographs were made of her last half-hour, some by Linienschiffsleutnant Meusburger of Tegetthoff with his own camera. This image shows the great dreadnought heeling steeply, her sister close by, a small boat and men in the water between them. Hers is the only battleship sinking filmed in the First World War, and one of only two on the high seas ever filmed.
The real ship Szent István was built at the Ganz Danubius yard in Fiume, launched in 1914 and commissioned in December 1915, the only ship of her class built in the Hungarian half of the empire. She capsized off Premuda at 6.12 am on 10 June 1918 with the loss of 89 men and lies upside down at 66 metres, a protected site of the Croatian Ministry of Culture.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
HMS Vindictive Named ship
HMS Vindictive after Returning to Dover from the Zeebrugge Raid, April 1918
Photographer British official photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (Q 55568)
Medium Photograph
Vindictive was the old cruiser that carried the storming parties to the Zeebrugge mole, fitted out at Chatham for the assault. Back at Dover after the raid, this photograph shows one of the two 7.5-inch howitzers and the Stokes mortars mounted to support the landing parties against the German battery at the seaward end of the mole. She came home, unlike the blockships left in the canal, but only for a few weeks: on 9 May she was sunk as a blockship at Ostend.
“HMS VINDICTIVE after returning to Dover following the Zeebrugge Raid”
The real ship Vindictive was an old cruiser specially equipped at Chatham for the raid of 23 April 1918, when she led the diversion against the Zeebrugge mole. She was sunk as a blockship in the Second Ostend Raid on 9 May 1918.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: British official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
USS Leviathan (formerly SS Vaterland) Named ship
Leviathan Docking with 12,000 Returning Troops Aboard, 2 April 1919
Photographer Western Newspaper Union photographer
Where to see it US National Archives, College Park (Demobilization series, NAID 26433441)
Medium Photograph
The largest passenger ship in the world had been built for the Hamburg America Line; laid up at Hoboken in 1914 and seized in 1917, she carried American soldiers to France under her new name. In the spring of 1919 the traffic ran the other way. This homecoming picture shows her decks packed with some of the 12,000 men she brought back, among them soldiers of New York's famous 69th Infantry. The liner built as a showpiece of German shipping ends the war crowded with returning Americans.
“She brought back 12,000 men from all parts of country.”
The real ship Vaterland was launched on 3 April 1913 for the Hamburg America Line and was then the largest passenger ship in the world. Commissioned in the US Navy in 1917 and renamed Leviathan, she made ten round trips carrying more than 119,000 troops to Europe, and brought soldiers home until September 1919.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Western Newspaper Union photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SMS Bayern Named ship
Scuttling of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow: SMS Bayern Down by the Stern and Sinking, 21 June 1919
Photographer C. W. Burrows, Royal Navy official photographer
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (SP 1626)
Medium Photograph
Interned at Scapa Flow while the peace was negotiated, the High Seas Fleet was sent to the bottom by its own crews on the order of Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, who feared the ships would be seized or the war resumed. Burrows caught the battleship Bayern going down by the stern, the moment a navy chose to disappear rather than be handed over. She sank at 14.30. By five in the afternoon 52 of the 74 interned ships were gone.
The real ship Bayern was the lead ship of Germany's last class of dreadnoughts, mounting 38 cm guns; she was mined in the Gulf of Riga in October 1917 and interned at Scapa Flow in November 1918. After the scuttling she lay on the bottom until September 1934, when she was raised, towed to Rosyth and scrapped.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: C. W. Burrows, Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1840 to 1920 · Photograph
SMS Hindenburg Named ship
Scuttling of the German Fleet at Scapa Flow: The Upper Works of SMS Hindenburg above the Water, 21 June 1919
Photographer C. W. Burrows, Royal Navy official photographer
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (SP 1635)
Medium Photograph
The battlecruiser Hindenburg was the last of the interned fleet to go down, at five in the afternoon, and her captain had arranged for her to sink on an even keel, so that her funnels, masts and upper works stayed above the surface of Scapa Flow. Burrows' photograph shows that drowned silhouette: a modern capital ship reduced to a landmark in an Orkney anchorage. The salvor Ernest Cox later bought her, with Seydlitz and a flotilla of destroyers, for the steel in their hulls.
The real ship Hindenburg was a battlecruiser of the Imperial German Navy, scuttled at Scapa Flow on 21 June 1919. The firm of Cox and Danks bought the rights to her in 1924; after several failed attempts she was raised on 23 July 1930 and towed to Rosyth, where she was broken up between 1930 and 1932.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: C. W. Burrows, Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
River boats on the Seine Unnamed
[Boats and Washerwomen on the Banks of the Seine, Paris], 1926
Photographer André Kertész (1894 to 1985)
Where to see it The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gilman Collection, 2005.100.915)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Kertész moved to Paris in 1925, then the artistic capital of the world, against the wishes of his family, and his then unorthodox camera angles made his early work slow to find recognition. This small print of 1926, under eight by eleven centimetres, belongs to his first years in the city. Its descriptive title records the working river: boats on the Seine and the washerwomen along its banks. The boats are not heroes here but part of the everyday life of the river, and that is the quiet charm of Kertész's early Paris.
The vessels Unnamed working boats on the Seine in Paris in the 1920s.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
A sailing boat on the Spree near Berlin Unnamed
Climbing the Mast, 1928
Photographer László Moholy-Nagy (1895 to 1946)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2004.275)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Moholy-Nagy, the Bauhaus professor who coined the term New Vision, pointed his camera straight up the rigging of a sailing boat on the Spree near Berlin. The Metropolitan Museum calls it a prime example of that new vision: a small hand-held camera, a free-wheeling spirit and a viewpoint that turns the usual rules of perspective upside down. The deck vanishes and the boat becomes a web of lines against the sky, and a small boat was all he needed to show the dynamism of the modern world.
“This exciting and unexpected view up the rigging of a sailboat, made on the Spree River near Berlin”
The vessels The boat is an unnamed small sailing boat on the Spree River near Berlin, of the kind used for recreation on the city's rivers and lakes.
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Juan Sebastián de Elcano Named ship
Ship Juan Sebastián Elcano with Passengers on Deck, 1928 to 1933
Photographer Walker Evans (1903 to 1975)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Walker Evans Archive (1994.251.1034)
Medium Film negative
Among the early negatives of Walker Evans, made between 1928 and 1933, are views of the Spanish Navy's training ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano with passengers crowding her deck. She was then new, built at Cádiz in 1927. Here the young photographer turned his camera on a four-masted ship and the crowd aboard her. The ship he found is still the Spanish Navy's training ship, the sailing vessel that has sailed farther than any other.
The real ship Built in 1927 at Cádiz by Echevarrieta y Larrinaga to a hull design by C. E. Nicholson of Camper and Nicholsons, the 113-metre steel four-masted topsail barquentine is the Spanish Navy's training ship, the third-largest tall ship in the world and the sailing vessel that has sailed the farthest, more than 2,000,000 nautical miles.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Majestic Named ship
Upper Deck, c. 1928
Photographer Charles Sheeler (1883 to 1965)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.155)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Sheeler was presumably commissioned in 1928 to photograph the liner Majestic, though, as the Metropolitan Museum notes, the details remain unclear. He did not show the ship whole. Instead he focused on her motors, ventilator stacks and exhaust fans, symbols of her mechanical power, using the vantage point to stress geometry and repetition. The liner becomes a machine for living in Le Corbusier's phrase, seen with the cool eye of a Precisionist. The next year he used the photograph as the basis for his painting of the same name.
“A year later, Sheeler would use the photograph as the basis for a painting of the same name.”
The real ship Launched in 1914 as the Hamburg America liner Bismarck, she was finished by her German builders after the war, handed over as reparations and became the White Star flagship Majestic, the largest ship in the world until Normandie. She later served the Royal Navy as the training ship HMS Caledonia, caught fire and sank in 1939, and was raised and scrapped in 1943.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Grace Harwar Named ship
Photographs aboard the Full-Rigged Ship Grace Harwar, 1929
Photographer Alan Villiers (1903 to 1982)
Medium Gelatin silver prints
Villiers shipped aboard Grace Harwar in 1929 for the voyage from Australia to Ireland round Cape Horn because he wanted to record the great sailing ships before it was too late. Grace Harwar, more than forty years old, was one of the last full-riggers in the trade, and a wharf labourer warned him not to sail in her. His friend Ronald Walker was lost on the voyage, which took 138 days. Villiers filmed it and took photographs, a record of the last days of full-rigged working ships.
“Don't ship out in her! She's a killer.”
The real ship A full-rigged ship more than forty years old in 1929, Grace Harwar was one of the last square-riggers in the Australian grain trade and sailed from Australia to Ireland round Cape Horn that year with Villiers in her crew.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists.
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Bremen Named ship
The Bremen at Bremerhaven, 1930
Photographer Margaret Bourke-White (1904 to 1971)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1987.1100.443)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Bourke-White, whose corporate work led her to Fortune magazine, found the German record-breaker at her home port. Her pencil inscription on the back of the print calls her the North German Lloyd Line's ship in for refitting at her home port. Bremen was a national symbol, low and streamlined, holder of the Blue Riband, and Bourke-White photographed her as she photographed dams and factories, as a monument of the machine age.
“The North German Lloyd Line's Cruise Ship in for Refitting at her home port”
The real ship Launched in 1928 for Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen and her sister Europa were the most advanced high-speed liners of their day and sparked an international competition for fast, luxurious ships; Bremen held the Blue Riband. She was set alight by a 14-year-old crew member at her Bremerhaven dock on 16 March 1941 and completely gutted.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Morro Castle Named ship
The Burning of the SS Morro Castle at Sea, 8 September 1934
Photographer International News Photos, Inc.
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington, Prints and Photographs Division (cph.3b15302)
Medium Gelatin silver print
The press photographs of Morro Castle burning off the New Jersey coast showed Americans a liner turned into a furnace, hours from New York on her way home from Havana. A fire found in a storage locker at 2.50 in the morning spread through the ship; the decks grew too hot to stand on and passengers were forced to leap into heavy swells. In all, 137 passengers and crew were lost. When the burning hull drifted ashore at Asbury Park, so close to the boardwalk that people could wade out and touch it, the wreck itself became a spectacle.
The real ship Built for the Ward Line under the Merchant Marine Act of 1928 for the New York to Havana service, Morro Castle caught fire on 8 September 1934 and drifted ashore at Asbury Park. Her hulk was towed away in March 1935 and scrapped at Baltimore.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: International News Photos, Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Normandie Named ship
The SS Normandie Arriving in New York Harbor on Her Maiden Voyage, 1935 to 1936
Photographer Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc.
Where to see it Library of Congress, Washington, Prints and Photographs Division (cph.3b36522)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Seen from the air as she comes into New York harbour, Normandie steams among ferries and tugs with the Statue of Liberty behind her, her three funnels trailing smoke. She entered service in 1935 as the largest and fastest passenger ship afloat, crossing the Atlantic in a record 4.14 days, and 50,000 people saw her off at Le Havre on her maiden voyage. An aerial view suits her: from above, the long hull and the slanting, clipper-like bow designed by Vladimir Yourkevitch read like a drawing.
The real ship Built at Saint-Nazaire for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, Normandie entered service in 1935 and made 139 westbound crossings from Le Havre to New York. Seized in New York and renamed USS Lafayette, she caught fire and capsized at Pier 88 in 1942 and was scrapped in 1946.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Fairchild Aerial Surveys, Inc., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Herzogin Cecilie Named ship
The Herzogin Cecilie on the Rocks, South Devon, 1936
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it State Library of Victoria, Melbourne (H2009.45/753)
Medium Photograph
Herzogin Cecilie won the grain race from Australia four times in eleven voyages between 1926 and 1936. On 25 April 1936, making for Ipswich, she grounded on the Ham Stone and drifted onto the cliffs of Bolt Head on the south Devon coast. The photograph looks out from a rocky cove, surf breaking over the stones in the foreground, to the white-hulled four-masted barque held fast offshore, her yards still crossed on every mast. A racing windjammer has been brought to a standstill on an English shore.
The real ship Herzogin Cecilie was built by Rickmers at Bremerhaven and launched on 22 April 1902 for Norddeutscher Lloyd, later sailing under the French and Finnish flags. After the stranding she was refloated and towed in June 1936 to Starehole Bay, where she capsized and sank on 18 January 1939; her remains lie in 7 metres of water.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Illinois (BB-7) Named ship
U.S.S. Illinois, West 135th Street Pier, Manhattan, 2 July 1937
Photographer Berenice Abbott (1898 to 1991)
Where to see it New York Public Library, Changing New York (CNY 252)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Three men sit on the pier in front of an old battleship that no longer goes to sea. Illinois had sailed round the world with the Great White Fleet, and by the time Abbott photographed her she was a floating armoury for the New York Naval Militia, moored at West 135th Street. Abbott's documentary eye treats her as a building among buildings, with the highway and the city behind: a warship with a timber house built over her hull, turned into part of the Manhattan waterfront.
The real ship Laid down at Newport News in 1897 and commissioned in 1901, Illinois served with the European Squadron and the North Atlantic Fleet and circled the globe with the Great White Fleet in 1907 to 1909. Converted to a floating armoury in 1924 and renamed Prairie State in 1941, she was sold for scrap in 1956.
Sources digitalcollections.nypl.org · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Berenice Abbott, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Normandie Named ship
Normandie, North River, Manhattan, from Pier 88, French Line, Manhattan, 14 September 1938
Photographer Berenice Abbott (1898 to 1991)
Where to see it New York Public Library, Changing New York (CNY L18)
Medium Gelatin silver print
For her Changing New York project Abbott took a bird's-eye view from Pier 88: a crowded dock in the corner, the whole length of Normandie in the North River, a tug at her side and the Palisades beyond. It is the liner as a piece of the city, as much part of the West Side as the piers themselves. Less than four years later, at this same pier, Normandie would burn and capsize, which gives Abbott's calm documentary view a weight she could not have intended.
The real ship Normandie entered service in 1935 from Le Havre and was interned in New York in September 1939. Seized by the United States and renamed Lafayette, she caught fire at Pier 88 in 1942 during conversion to a troopship, capsized, and was scrapped in 1946.
Sources digitalcollections.nypl.org · Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Berenice Abbott, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Admiral Graf Spee Named ship
The German Battleship Admiral Graf Spee in Flames after Being Scuttled off Montevideo, 17 December 1939
Photographer Royal Navy official photographer
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (A 3)
Medium Gelatin silver print
After the Battle of the River Plate, Captain Hans Langsdorff, convinced by false reports that superior British forces were gathering, took his ship into the outer roadstead off Montevideo with only forty other men aboard and scuttled her. A crowd of 20,000 watched. When the charges fired at 20.55 the exploding ammunition sent jets of flame high into the air, and the photograph catches the ship burning in the estuary, her tower mast rising from the smoke: a raider ended by her own crew.
The real ship Laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft, Wilhelmshaven, in October 1932 and completed by January 1936, Admiral Graf Spee carried six 28 cm guns and was deployed to the South Atlantic before the outbreak of war in 1939. Scuttled on 17 December 1939, she was partly broken up where she lay.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Vanquisher (D54) Named ship
Dunkirk 1940: British Troops Boarding the Destroyer HMS Vanquisher from the Mole, May 1940
Photographer British official photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (HU 1153)
Medium Gelatin silver print
At low tide on the Mole at Dunkirk, British soldiers climb down scaling ladders onto the deck of the destroyer Vanquisher. The harbour's protective mole became an unexpected heart of the evacuation, where 39 Royal Navy destroyers among others came alongside to take off troops. The photograph has none of the heroics of the little ships legend; it shows the patient, dangerous work of loading men onto a warship, soldiers crowded on her deck beneath the davits.
The real ship Built by John Brown at Clydebank and commissioned in October 1917, Vanquisher was fitted to carry mines and served in both world wars. She was sold for scrap in 1947 and arrived at the breakers at Charlestown, Fife, in October 1948.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: British official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Lancastria Named ship
The Sinking of the Cunard Liner Lancastria off St Nazaire, 17 June 1940
Photographer Frank Clements (volunteer storeman aboard HMS Highlander)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (HU 3325)
Medium Photograph
Lancastria was sunk on 17 June 1940 during Operation Aerial while evacuating British nationals and troops from France, loaded far beyond her capacity. Hit by bombs from German aircraft, she sank within twenty minutes. All the photographs of the sinking were taken by Frank Clements, a volunteer storeman aboard the destroyer Highlander, who was exempt from the rules against cameras. Here, from Highlander's deck beside a slung boat, the overturned liner lies low on the horizon. Estimates of the dead run from about 4,000 to 7,000: the largest loss of life from a single ship in British maritime history.
The real ship She was launched in 1920 as Tyrrhenia by William Beardmore and Company for the Anchor Line, a Cunard subsidiary, and later sailed as Lancastria. As a troopship she took part in the evacuation of troops from Norway in April 1940 before her loss off St Nazaire on 17 June 1940.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Queen Elizabeth, RMS Queen Mary and SS Normandie Named ship
The Three Largest Ships in the World, New York, 1940
Photographer Unknown photographer (photographic postcard)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Mitchell Library
Medium Photomechanical postcard
Once only, in 1940, the three largest ships in the world lay together in New York: the brand-new Queen Elizabeth, which had entered service that March as a troopship, the Queen Mary, and the French Normandie, interned there since September 1939. The picture was sold as a postcard, a souvenir of an extraordinary meeting. The plan was for all three to become troopships. It is also a farewell: Normandie caught fire at her pier and never sailed again.
The real ship Queen Elizabeth, the largest passenger liner ever built for a record 56 years, entered service in March 1940 as a troopship. Normandie, interned in New York since 1939, caught fire and capsized at Pier 88 in February 1942.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, where the original is kept. Photo: Geoff Barker, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Barham Named ship
HMS Barham Explodes, Eastern Mediterranean, 25 November 1941
Photographer Pathé News cameraman aboard HMS Valiant (film still, official photograph)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (FLM 1984)
Medium Film still
On 25 November 1941 three of four torpedoes from U-331 struck Barham amidships so closely together that they threw up a single column of water. She capsized to port, and about four minutes after she was torpedoed a magazine explosion sank her. The sinking was filmed by a Pathé News cameraman aboard Valiant, and this official still shows the moment of the explosion, a vast cloud over the hull. In all, 862 officers and men were killed, and Captain Geoffrey Cooke went down with his ship. To conceal the loss, the Admiralty censored all news of it for weeks.
The real ship Barham, one of five Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, was built by John Brown at Clydebank, laid down on 24 February 1913 and launched on 31 December 1914. She fought at Jutland and in the Second World War served at Dakar, Cape Matapan and Crete before U-331 sank her off the Egyptian coast on 25 November 1941; Hotspur and Nizam rescued the survivors.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Pathé News cameraman aboard HMS Valiant, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Bismarck Named ship
Battleship Bismarck Firing at the Battle of the Denmark Strait, 24 May 1941
Photographer Lagemann, Kriegsmarine propaganda company photographer
Where to see it Bundesarchiv, Koblenz (Bild 146-1968-015-25)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Credited to a propaganda company photographer named Lagemann, this frame shows Bismarck firing salvo after salvo in the Battle of the Denmark Strait, where she and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen met HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales. A shell from Bismarck struck Hood near her after magazines, and Hood exploded and sank within three minutes with all but three of her crew. The picture carries the double weight of that morning: a German success that set off the pursuit in which Bismarck herself was sunk three days later.
The real ship Laid down at Blohm and Voss, Hamburg, in July 1936, launched in February 1939 and commissioned in August 1940, Bismarck made one offensive sortie, Operation Rheinübung, in May 1941. After the sinking of Hood she was crippled by a torpedo from a Swordfish of HMS Ark Royal and sunk on 27 May 1941.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, where the original is kept. Photo: Holger Weinandt, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Prince of Wales (53) Named ship
Church Service on the After Deck of HMS Prince of Wales, Placentia Bay, 10 August 1941
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 67209)
Medium Gelatin silver print
In Placentia Bay, Roosevelt and Churchill sat side by side at a church service on the after deck of Prince of Wales, with Admirals King, Stark and Pound and Generals Marshall and Dill standing behind them, days before the two leaders issued the Atlantic Charter. The battleship had carried Churchill across the Atlantic to the secret conference. The photograph carries a sorrow no one aboard could see: four months later Prince of Wales was sunk off Malaya by Japanese aircraft.
The real ship Built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, Prince of Wales fought Bismarck in the Denmark Strait in May 1941 and carried Churchill to the Atlantic Conference in August. She was sunk with HMS Repulse by Japanese aircraft on 10 December 1941, the first capital ships sunk solely by air power on the open sea.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Express Named ship
The Crew of HMS Prince of Wales Abandoning Ship to the Destroyer Express, 10 December 1941
Photographer Lieutenant Commander Cartwright, Royal Navy
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (HU 2675)
Medium Photograph
After torpedo attacks by Japanese aircraft, the destroyer Express came alongside the listing Prince of Wales to take off the wounded and non-fighting crew, and the photograph catches the moment: men crowd the battleship's tilted side and scramble down onto the destroyer's deck, one caught mid-leap. Moments later the list suddenly increased and Express had to withdraw. Prince of Wales sank stern first at 13.18, and 327 of her complement of 1,612 were lost.
The real ship Prince of Wales was sunk by Japanese aircraft on 10 December 1941 in the South China Sea; she sank at 13.18, just as RAAF Buffalo fighters arrived over the battle. Her bell was removed from the wreck in 2002 and is displayed at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Lieutenant Commander Cartwright, Royal Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Hood Named ship
HMS Hood Going into Action against Bismarck: the Last Photograph of Hood, 24 May 1941
Photographer Royal Navy photographer aboard HMS Prince of Wales (unidentified)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (HU 50190)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Taken from the new battleship Prince of Wales as the two ships went into action against Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, this is the last photograph ever taken of HMS Hood. She is seen far ahead in a grey sea, framed by the barrels of Prince of Wales's guns. For twenty years she had been the largest warship in the world, known as the Mighty Hood. Within minutes a shell from Bismarck struck near her after magazines, and she sank in three minutes; only three of her crew survived. The picture holds the last moment before.
The real ship Begun by John Brown at Clydebank in 1916 and redesigned after Jutland, Hood was commissioned in 1920 and remained the largest warship in the world for 20 years. She was sunk in the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Royal Navy photographer aboard HMS Prince of Wales, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse Named ship
Japanese Aerial Photograph of the High Level Bombing Attack on Prince of Wales and Repulse, 10 December 1941
Photographer Imperial Japanese Navy airman (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 60566)
Medium Aerial photograph
Taken from a Japanese aircraft during the first high-level bombing attack on 10 December 1941, the picture looks straight down on the two British capital ships. Repulse, near the bottom, has just been hit by one bomb and near-missed by several more, the splashes blooming white around her, while Prince of Wales, near the top, trails a long plume of smoke as she turns. They are seen from the kind of aircraft that was about to sink them both off the coast of Malaya. Japanese writing in the corner records that the Navy Ministry authorised its reproduction.
The real ship The modern battleship Prince of Wales and the First World War-era battlecruiser Repulse arrived at Singapore on 2 December 1941. Both were sunk by Japanese aircraft on 10 December 1941 in the South China Sea about 70 miles east of Kuantan, with the loss of 840 sailors.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Imperial Japanese Navy airman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Yamato Named ship
Japanese Battleship Yamato Running Trials, 1941
Photographer Hasuya Hirohata (Imperial Japanese Navy)
Where to see it Yamato Museum, Kure (PG061427); Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 73092)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Built in extreme secrecy, with a canopy erected over part of the dry dock to screen her from view, Yamato was photographed running machinery trials off the Bungo Strait on 20 October 1941, seven weeks before Pearl Harbor. The picture shows her in profile at speed, spray breaking at the bow, the towering superstructure and main turrets standing out against a grey sky. She and her sister Musashi were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever built, and here she is seen before any enemy had set eyes on her.
The real ship Laid down at Kure Naval Arsenal on 4 November 1937, launched on 8 August 1940 and commissioned in December 1941, a week after Pearl Harbor, Yamato carried nine 46 cm guns, the largest ever mounted on a warship. She was sunk by American carrier aircraft on 7 April 1945 on a one-way mission to Okinawa.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Hasuya Hirohata, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Patrick Henry Named ship
The Launching of SS Patrick Henry on Liberty Fleet Day, 27 September 1941
Photographer US Maritime Commission photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Museum of the United States Navy, Washington (Lot 3452 6)
Medium Photograph
Liberty ships began life with a poor public image, so 27 September 1941 was named Liberty Fleet Day and the first fourteen of them were launched that day. The first was Patrick Henry at Baltimore, launched by President Roosevelt, who cited Patrick Henry's speech of 1775 and said the new ships would bring liberty to Europe, which gave the class its name. The photograph looks over a crowd in hats down the empty ways between the steel scaffolding to the ship, dressed with bunting, already afloat. It marks the start of the whole Liberty programme.
“Less than five months from keel-laying to launching ceremony was the record set by SS Patrick Henry.”
The real ship Patrick Henry was built at the Bethlehem Fairfield shipyard in Baltimore and was the first Liberty ship launched. The standard design was chosen to be built in existing yards in minimum time, with prefabricated sections and welding in place of riveting wherever possible.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Maritime Commission photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
HMS Ark Royal (91) Named ship
HMS Legion Alongside the Listing HMS Ark Royal, 13 November 1941
Photographer Lieutenant S. J. Beadell, Royal Navy official photographer
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London
Medium Gelatin silver print
Torpedoed by the German submarine U-81 off Gibraltar on 13 November 1941, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal took on a heavy list, and the destroyer Legion moved alongside to take off her crew. Beadell's photograph shows the two ships pressed together, men lining the edge of the carrier's canted flight deck above the destroyer. It is a photograph of rescue as much as of loss: the destroyer stays close to take off the men, and the carrier they are leaving sank the following day.
The real ship HMS Ark Royal, a Royal Navy aircraft carrier, was torpedoed by U-81 off Gibraltar on 13 November 1941 while the destroyer Legion stood by to take off survivors; she sank the following day.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Lieutenant S. J. Beadell, Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor (USS Nevada, Arizona with Vestal, Tennessee with West Virginia, Maryland with Oklahoma, Neosho and California) Named ship
Photograph Taken from a Japanese Aircraft during the Torpedo Attack on Battleship Row, 7 December 1941
Photographer Japanese Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 50931); reproduced by authorisation of the Japanese Navy Ministry
Medium Gelatin silver print
This is the attack seen from the attacker's side, at about eight in the morning: a photograph taken from a Japanese aircraft looking down on the battleships moored in pairs along Battleship Row. Torpedo drop splashes and running tracks cross the water, and ripples and spreading oil already mark West Virginia, Oklahoma and California, the first two listing to port. Nevada lies at the end of the line with her flag raised at the stern. Japanese writing in the corner states that the image was reproduced by authorisation of the Navy Ministry.
The real ship The US Pacific Fleet had been based at Pearl Harbor since 1940. On 7 December 1941 all eight battleships present were damaged and four were sunk; all but Arizona and Utah were later refloated, and six returned to service during the war.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Japanese Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Shaw (DD-373) Named ship
USS Shaw Exploding, Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1979.543.2); negative 80-G-16871, National Archives
Medium Gelatin silver print
Shaw was sitting in a floating dry dock at Pearl Harbor, receiving adjustments to her depth-charge gear, when she was hit three times. Fires spread, the order to abandon ship was given, and shortly after 09.30 her forward magazine exploded. The photograph of that fireball, taken across the water with a palm frond overhead, became one of the best-known images of the attack. What follows the picture is remarkable: the destroyer was repaired, given a new bow at San Francisco, and served in the Pacific to the end of the war, earning eleven battle stars.
The real ship A Mahan-class destroyer laid down at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1934 and commissioned in 1936, Shaw was repaired after Pearl Harbor with a new bow, served in the Pacific through the rest of the war, was decommissioned in October 1945 and sold for scrap in July 1946.
Sources The Met · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS West Virginia (BB-48) Named ship
A Small Boat Rescues a Seaman from the Burning USS West Virginia, 7 December 1941
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it US Navy, Office of Public Relations; National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
In the foreground West Virginia burns after the torpedoes of Pearl Harbor, two men still in her superstructure, while a small boat rescues a seaman from the water; Tennessee lies behind her. The photograph turns the catastrophe into a human-scale act of courage. The battleship herself sank in the shallow harbour, but she was refloated and rebuilt, and she returned to lead the American line of battle at Surigao Strait.
The real ship Laid down in 1920 and commissioned in 1923, the fourth battleship of the Colorado class carried eight 16-inch guns. Sunk at Pearl Harbor, she was refloated, extensively rebuilt through 1943 and into 1944, and returned for the Philippines campaign, leading the American line of battle at Surigao Strait.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Arizona (BB-39) Named ship
The USS Arizona Burning after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (NARA 195617)
Medium Gelatin silver print
The photograph shows Arizona after an armour-piercing bomb detonated a magazine, sinking her at her berth with the loss of 1,177 officers and men. The supporting structure of her forward tripod mast has collapsed and the hull rests on the harbour bottom, burning. It is less a picture of a ship than of a grave: unlike many of the ships hit that morning, Arizona was never repaired, and she still lies in Pearl Harbor beneath the memorial built across her remains.
The real ship The second and last ship of the Pennsylvania class, commissioned in 1916, Arizona escorted President Wilson to the Paris Peace Conference and joined the Pacific Fleet in 1921. Sunk on 7 December 1941, her wreck lies beneath the USS Arizona Memorial.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Ohio Named ship
The Arrival of the Ohio at Malta, Operation Pedestal, 15 August 1942
Photographer Royal Navy official photographer (credited on the IWM record to John Alfred Hampton and Lt J. E. Russell)
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (A 11261)
Medium Photograph
The American-built tanker Ohio carried fuel for besieged Malta in Operation Pedestal, and she was torpedoed and attacked from the air until she could barely stay afloat. She was brought in anyway, and this official photograph, taken from a warship with a gun barrel in the foreground, shows her on 15 August 1942 with destroyers alongside, moving slowly through the minefield outside Grand Harbour. It was the festival of Santa Marija; crowds on the ramparts cheered and a brass band on the mole played Rule Britannia. Malta still remembers her as the saviour of the island.
The real ship Ohio was launched on 20 April 1940 by the Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Company at Chester, Pennsylvania, for The Texas Company. She reached Malta so badly damaged that she had to be effectively scuttled to offload her cargo and never sailed again; her two halves were later sunk off the island.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Lexington (CV-2) Named ship
Crew Abandons USS Lexington, Battle of the Coral Sea, 8 May 1942
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola (NNAM.2001.205.069)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Hit by Japanese torpedoes and bombs at the Coral Sea, Lexington burned as gasoline vapour from cracked tanks set off explosions below, and in the afternoon the order was given to abandon ship, with a destroyer alongside taking on survivors. The photograph shows the carrier smoking, men still gathered on her flight deck. Lady Lex, one of the navy's first aircraft carriers, was scuttled by an American destroyer that evening to prevent her capture.
The real ship Laid down by Fore River at Quincy in 1921 as a battlecruiser and converted to a carrier under the Washington Treaty, Lexington entered service in 1928. Scuttled on 8 May 1942, her wreck was found by RV Petrel in March 2018.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Hiryū Named ship
The Japanese Aircraft Carrier Hiryu Adrift and Burning, 5 June 1942
Photographer Kiyoshi Oniwa, Imperial Japanese Navy special service ensign
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (NH 73065)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Shortly after sunrise on the day after the carrier battle at Midway, an aircraft from the carrier Hōshō found Hiryū still afloat, and its crew photographed her burning, her flight deck torn out by the dive bombers of Yorktown and Enterprise. Hiryū had launched the strikes that crippled Yorktown the day before. Seen from above, a carrier without her aircraft is only a burning hull, and this Japanese photograph records the end of the last of the four carriers lost at Midway.
The real ship Built to a modified Sōryū design, Hiryū supported the invasion of French Indochina, took part in the attack on Pearl Harbor, the raid on Darwin and the Indian Ocean Raid, and was crippled by American dive bombers at Midway on 4 June 1942. She was scuttled the following day.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Kiyoshi Oniwa, Imperial Japanese Navy special service ensign, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Yorktown (CV-5) Named ship
Japanese Torpedo Bombers Fly Past USS Yorktown, Battle of Midway, 4 June 1942
Photographer US Navy photographer aboard USS Pensacola (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-G-32241)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Photographed from the cruiser Pensacola during the mid-afternoon attack at Midway, two torpedo bombers from Hiryū race past Yorktown having dropped their torpedoes, the sky dotted with heavy anti-aircraft fire and a destroyer, probably Morris, just beyond the carrier's bow. The attackers fly almost at wave height. Three of the four Japanese carriers were already burning wrecks; Yorktown was hit that afternoon and was sunk two days later by a submarine's torpedoes.
The real ship Commissioned in 1937, Yorktown was the lead ship of the three-ship Yorktown class. At Midway on 4 June 1942 she was struck by aircraft from Hiryū; on 6 June she was hit by two torpedoes from a Japanese submarine and sank the next day.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer aboard USS Pensacola, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Lafayette (AP-53), formerly SS Normandie Named ship
Lafayette (formerly Normandie) after Catching Fire in New York Harbor, 9 February 1942
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
The photographs of the burning liner at Pier 88 record the end of the most celebrated ship of the 1930s. While she was being converted into a troopship, fire broke out aboard; fireboats poured water on the blaze, she developed a dangerous list to port, and she finally capsized onto her port side and came to rest half-submerged on the bottom of the Hudson. Smoke rising over her funnels in the middle of Manhattan made the loss public in the most visible way possible, a great ship dying in full view of the city that had welcomed her.
The real ship Built at Saint-Nazaire and in service from 1935 as flagship of the French Line, Normandie was seized in New York and renamed USS Lafayette. After the fire of February 1942 she was salvaged at great expense and righted in 1943, but restoration was judged too costly and she was scrapped in October 1946.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Lafayette, formerly SS Normandie Named ship
Normandie Capsized, New York, 1942
Photographer Unknown photographer (photographic postcard)
Where to see it State Library of New South Wales, Sydney (PXE 722/2782)
Medium Photographic postcard
After the fire, the most celebrated liner of the age lay on her side in the Hudson at Pier 88, the water poured in to fight the flames having rolled her over. This photograph, printed as a postcard, shows the capsized hull beside the French Line pier with the towers of Manhattan behind, a measure of how much she had belonged to the city. Her salvage took until August 1943, when she was righted, and she never sailed again.
The real ship Normandie, the French Line flagship from 1935, was seized in New York and renamed USS Lafayette. She caught fire during conversion to a troopship in February 1942, capsized onto her port side, was salvaged at great expense and was scrapped in October 1946.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USCGC Spencer and U-175 Named ship
Depth Charge Exploding near U-175, Seen from the Coast Guard Cutter Spencer, 17 April 1943
Photographer Jack January, US Coast Guard photographer
Where to see it US Coast Guard; US National Archives
Medium Photograph
Some 500 nautical miles west-south-west of Ireland, on 17 April 1943, the crew of the Coast Guard cutter Spencer watched from the stern as a depth charge exploded near U-175, and the photographer Jack January caught the eruption of water, with the ships of the convoy spread along the horizon. Spencer's depth charges ruptured the U-boat's pressure hull and forced her to the surface, where her captain signalled surrender. It is the Battle of the Atlantic in a single frame, the hunter and the hunted invisible to each other until the sea itself explodes.
The real ship U-175 was built by AG Weser at Bremen and made three war patrols, sinking ten merchant ships of 40,619 gross register tons. Spencer sank her on 17 April 1943; of her 54 crew, 13 were killed and the rest were picked up by Spencer and Duane.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: Jack January, US Coast Guard photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Lexington (CV-16) Named ship
Getting Set for the Big Strike on Kwajalein, U.S.S. Lexington, 1943
Photographer Edward Steichen (1879 to 1973)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1987.1100.496)
Medium Gelatin silver print
A pencil note on the back of this print records that it is an infrared photograph made on USS Lexington during the Gilbert and Marshall operations. The title places it before the carrier's strike on Kwajalein in December 1943, when her aircraft were readied for the raid. Steichen, directing the Navy's aviation photographers in his sixties, chose infrared film for a working scene of preparation, a technical experiment carried to sea. It is the quiet before a raid, recorded by a photographer still experimenting at sea.
The real ship Commissioned in February 1943, Lexington raided Kwajalein on 4 December 1943 after the Gilbert Islands operation, led the Fast Carrier Task Force across the Pacific as Admiral Mitscher's flagship, and is preserved today at Corpus Christi, Texas.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Schenectady Named ship
The Tanker Schenectady Broken in Two at Her Fitting Out Dock, January 1943
Photographer Unknown photographer
Source US Government photograph
Medium Gelatin silver print
One cold January day at Portland, Oregon, just back from sea trials and moored at the fitting dock in calm weather, the new tanker Schenectady cracked almost in half with a noise heard at least a mile away. She jack-knifed on her intact bottom plating, her middle rising clear of the water. Later research pointed to brittle fracture in low-grade steel, which became highly brittle in cold weather. The photograph is a warning from the shipyards that were building ships faster than ever before.
The real ship The first tanker built by Kaiser's Swan Island Shipyard in Portland, Oregon, laid down on 1 July 1942 and completed on 31 December 1942. After the fracture of 16 January 1943 she was repaired and returned to service.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Landing craft off Leyte Unnamed
General MacArthur Wades Ashore at Leyte, 20 October 1944
Photographer Gaetano Faillace (1904 to 1991), US Army Signal Corps
Where to see it US Army Signal Corps; National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
MacArthur had watched the landings from the light cruiser Nashville and came in that afternoon; when his craft grounded in knee-deep water and the beachmaster had no landing craft to spare, he waded ashore. Faillace, his personal photographer, caught the moment. It has often been claimed that the picture was posed, a claim disputed by William J. Dunn, who was there. The landing craft behind the wading officers is the ship of this photograph, the boat behind a general's return to the Philippines.
The vessels Landing craft carried men from the transports to the Leyte beaches on 20 October 1944, when the US Sixth Army landed to begin the liberation of the Philippines, MacArthur watching from the light cruiser USS Nashville.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Gaetano Faillace, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Blockships of a Normandy Gooseberry Unnamed
A Gooseberry: Sunken Ships Forming Part of a Mulberry Harbour, June 1944
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington
Medium Photograph
Before the concrete caissons were all in place, old ships were sailed across the Channel and deliberately sunk in line off the Normandy beaches, their hulls forming sheltered water known as gooseberries. Off Omaha alone fifteen went down, among them the old British battleship Centurion. This US Navy photograph looks along one such line from the water: a gun on a bow in the foreground, then scarred hulls and upperworks standing out of the sea, an American flag still flying. These are ships sent to France to be sunk on purpose.
The vessels The blockships, codenamed corncobs, were obsolete merchant ships and warships scuttled to form breakwaters called gooseberries: ten off Utah, fifteen off Omaha including HMS Centurion, and sixteen off Gold.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons · Naval History and Heritage Command
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
LCVP (Higgins boat) from USS Samuel Chase Named ship
Into the Jaws of Death, 6 June 1944
Photographer Robert F. Sargent, Chief Photographer's Mate, US Coast Guard
Where to see it US Coast Guard Historian's Office and National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
Taken at 7.40 in the morning from inside a Higgins boat, the photograph looks past the Coast Guard crew as soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division wade through waist-deep water towards the Easy Red sector of Omaha Beach. The landing craft had left USS Samuel Chase about ten miles out at around 5.30, waves breaking over its square bow and drenching the men inside. The boat itself is the frame of the picture: its open bow gives onto the beach like a door.
The real ship USS Samuel Chase, launched in 1941 at Ingalls, Pascagoula, as African Meteor, was a Coast Guard-manned attack transport that took part in the landings at Algiers, Sicily, Salerno, Normandy and southern France, and was sold for scrap in 1973.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Robert F. Sargent, Chief Photographer's Mate, US Coast Guard, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS LST-532, LST-262, LST-310, LST-533 and LST-524 Named ship
Landing Ships Putting Cargo Ashore at Low Tide, Normandy, c. 9 June 1944
Photographer US Coast Guard photographer (photo 26-G-2517)
Where to see it US National Archives (26-G-2517)
Medium Photograph
In the first days of the invasion the tank landing ships ran up onto the Normandy sand and, at low tide, put their cargo straight ashore. This Coast Guard photograph shows a line of them grounded on the beach, barrage balloons riding overhead against air attack, and an Army half-track convoy forming up on the sand below, with more ships crowding the anchorage beyond. It shows the other side of the invasion: the steady flow of vehicles and supplies across the beaches.
The real ship Tank landing ships were built to run onto a beach and unload vehicles directly through bow doors. Those identifiable here include LST-532 at the centre, with LST-262, LST-310, LST-533 and LST-524.
Sources Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Coast Guard photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Mulberry B harbour at Arromanches Named ship
The Mulberry Artificial Harbour off Arromanches, September 1944
Photographer Sergeant Harrison, No. 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit
Where to see it Imperial War Museums, London (BU 1024)
Medium Aerial oblique photograph
Seen from the air in September 1944, three months after D-Day, the Mulberry harbour off Arromanches is a whole port built in pieces and towed across the Channel. Long floating roadways run out from the beach to pier heads crowded with ships, while breakwaters of sunken ships and concrete caissons curve round the anchorage and landing craft wait offshore. The harbour was built so that armoured vehicles and heavy guns could be landed. The photograph shows the invasion as a feat of engineering as much as of arms.
The real ship Two Mulberry harbours were built for Normandy: Mulberry A off Omaha, devastated by the storm that began on 19 June 1944, and Mulberry B off Gold Beach at Arromanches, which remained in use. Its remains are still visible from the beaches at Arromanches.
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Image: Sergeant Harrison, No. 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) Named ship
Admiral Nimitz Signs the Japanese Surrender Document aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Source US Navy photograph (reproduced in the USS Bennington 1944 to 1945 cruise book)
Medium Gelatin silver print
The Second World War ended on the deck of a battleship. Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay close to where Commodore Perry's ships had lain ninety-two years earlier, and the flag Perry had flown in 1853 was brought aboard to be displayed at the ceremony. In this photograph Fleet Admiral Nimitz signs the surrender document at a small table, sailors crowded on the superstructure above and the Japanese delegation looking on. The ship was chosen as a stage, and she has stayed one ever since as a museum.
The real ship Completed in 1944, Missouri entered Tokyo Bay on 29 August 1945; poor weather delayed the ceremony until 2 September. She later served in Korea, was reactivated in 1984, and is preserved as a museum ship.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Franklin (CV-13) Named ship
Attack on the Carrier USS Franklin, 19 March 1945
Photographer Albert Bullock, Chief Photographer's Mate, US Navy
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-G-273880)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Launching strikes against the Japanese mainland, Franklin was hit by two bombs from a single dive bomber, and the fires that followed made her the most heavily damaged American carrier to survive the war. Bullock took this photograph from the cruiser Santa Fe, which had come alongside to help fight the fires and rescue the crew: the carrier lies dead in the water with a 13-degree list, and her crew can be seen clearly on the flight deck. Her captain refused to scuttle her while many men were still alive below, and she was brought home.
The real ship Commissioned in January 1944, Franklin earned four battle stars. After the attack of 19 March 1945, in which 807 of her crew were lost, she returned to the United States for repair, was decommissioned in 1947 and never again saw active service.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Albert Bullock, Chief Photographer's Mate, US Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) Named ship
USS Bunker Hill Hit by Two Kamikazes in 30 Seconds, off Kyushu, 11 May 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
Off Kyushu on 11 May 1945, in the last months of the Okinawa campaign, Bunker Hill was struck by two kamikazes in quick succession. The photograph, made on her own flight deck, shows dense smoke boiling up behind the island while men run across the deck. It records the price of the last months of the Pacific war: 396 men killed or missing and 264 wounded, the second heaviest losses suffered by any carrier to survive the war. The carrier lived on, and after the war she carried servicemen home from the Pacific.
The real ship One of 24 Essex-class carriers, commissioned in May 1943, Bunker Hill fought from the Gilberts to Okinawa and received the Presidential Unit Citation. After the war she served as a troop transport bringing Americans home and was decommissioned in 1947.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Tirpitz Named ship
The Capsized Battleship Tirpitz at Håkøya, near Tromsø, 22 March 1945
Photographer No. 544 Squadron RAF reconnaissance crew (Squadron Leader F. L. Dodd and Pilot Officer A. Hill)
Source Royal Air Force reconnaissance photograph, No. 544 Squadron
Medium Gelatin silver print
Photographed from a low-flying reconnaissance Mosquito four months after her sinking, Tirpitz lies bottom up in the fjord near the isle of Håkøya, attended by salvage vessels, with snow on the shore. The heaviest battleship ever built by a European navy had spent her war in Norway, a fleet in being meant to tie down British naval forces. The image of her upturned hull is the quiet end of the German battleship.
The real ship Laid down at Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and commissioned in February 1941, Tirpitz, sister of Bismarck, was based in Norway to threaten the Arctic convoys and tie down British forces. Already damaged, she was sunk by Nos. 9 and 617 Squadrons RAF on 12 November 1944 in Operation Catechism.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: No. 544 Squadron RAF reconnaissance crew, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) and the Allied fleet in Tokyo Bay Named ship
Carrier Planes Fly over the Fleet in Tokyo Bay during the Surrender Ceremonies, 2 September 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it US National Archives (80-G-421130)
Medium Photograph
During the surrender ceremonies in Tokyo Bay, US Navy carrier planes flew in formation over the assembled American and British fleets: Avengers, Hellcats, Helldivers and Corsairs filling the sky in wave after wave. The photograph puts Missouri, where the ceremony took place, at the lower left, small beneath the aircraft, with the light cruiser Detroit in the right distance. It is a picture of sea and air power staged as a full stop to the war in the Pacific.
The real ship Missouri hosted the formal Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay; the ceremony ended with a flypast of over 800 US military aircraft.
Sources Wikimedia Commons · Wikipedia
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Yamato Named ship
Japanese Battleship Yamato under Attack in the East China Sea, 7 April 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-G-313714)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Photographed from the attacking American carrier aircraft north of Okinawa, Yamato lies far off on a dark sea, down at the bow and moving slowly after repeated air attacks, while nearer the camera a destroyer, probably Fuyuzuki, fires her guns. It is the final picture of the battleship age: the heaviest gunnery ship ever built, sent on a one-way mission to beach herself at Okinawa and sunk from the air. Most of her crew were lost with her, and the photograph is best read in that silence.
The real ship Commissioned in December 1941, Yamato was flagship of the Combined Fleet through 1942 and at Midway, fired her main guns at enemy surface targets only once, in October 1944 off Samar, and was sunk by carrier-based bombers and torpedo bombers on 7 April 1945.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) Named ship
Kamikaze Attack on USS Missouri, 11 April 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (Len Schmidt or Harold Campbell)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington
Medium Gelatin silver print
The photograph freezes a Japanese Zero an instant before it strikes the battleship's side off Okinawa, while the crew of a quadruple 40 mm mount fire in the foreground. The aircraft hit below the main deck; the burning fuel was quickly put out and there were no casualties aboard. The image shows the whole encounter in a single frame: the gunners, the steel side of the ship and the attacking plane. Missouri stayed on station, and months later the war would end on her deck.
The real ship Completed in 1944, Missouri was the last battleship commissioned by the United States. She fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, hosted the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay, served in Korea, was reactivated in 1984 and is now a museum ship.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) Named ship
Mamoru Shigemitsu Signs the Instrument of Surrender aboard USS Missouri, 2 September 1945
Photographer Lieutenant Stephen E. Korpanty, US Army Signal Corps
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (SC 213700)
Medium Photograph
On the deck of an American battleship in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, Japan's Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of his government, assisted by Toshikazu Kase of the Foreign Ministry, while Lieutenant General Richard Sutherland watches from the opposite side of the table and ranks of Allied officers stand behind. The Second World War ended not in a palace or a railway carriage but at sea. On Missouri that day was the same flag Commodore Perry had flown in 1853 on his first expedition to Japan.
The real ship Missouri was the US Navy battleship chosen as the stage for the formal Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945 in Tokyo Bay, attended by representatives of the Allied powers; Shigemitsu signed first for Japan at 9.04 in the morning.
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Image: Lieutenant Stephen E. Korpanty, US Army Signal Corps, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Queen Mary Named ship
The Queen Mary Arrives in New York Harbor with Thousands of US Troops from Europe, 20 June 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-GK-5645)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Six weeks after victory in Europe the Queen Mary came up the Hudson still in her light grey war paint, packed with American soldiers coming home, seen here from near Weehawken with Manhattan behind. Her wartime colour and speed had earned her the name Grey Ghost, and on one voyage in 1943 she carried more than 16,600 people, a record that still stands; now she was bringing them back. It is a homecoming photograph without a single face in focus: the joy is in the crowded decks and the ship itself.
The real ship Cunard's Queen Mary sailed the North Atlantic from 1936 to 1967, served as a troopship in the Second World War and set the record for the most people carried on one vessel. Refitted for passenger service in 1946 to 1947, she is now a hotel, museum and convention space at Long Beach, California.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Missouri (BB-63) Named ship
Representatives of the Empire of Japan on Board USS Missouri, 2 September 1945
Photographer US Army Signal Corps photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Naval History and Heritage Command, Washington (USA C-2719); Army Signal Corps Collection, US National Archives
Medium Photograph
Eleven men in three rows stand on the deck of the battleship to surrender an empire: Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu in his top hat and General Yoshijirō Umezu in front, and behind them three representatives each of the Foreign Ministry, the Army and the Navy. For one morning in Tokyo Bay the deck of Missouri was where the Second World War ended, with around 250 other Allied vessels gathered in the bay. The power of the photograph is its stillness, a formal group portrait made on a warship.
The real ship Missouri, an Iowa-class battleship completed in 1944 and the last battleship commissioned by the United States, anchored in Tokyo Bay on 29 August 1945; the Japanese representatives signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard her on 2 September 1945, around 9 am Tokyo time.
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Image: US Army Signal Corps photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Enterprise (CV-6) Named ship
Returning Veterans Fill the Hangar Deck of USS Enterprise during a Magic Carpet Voyage, September 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Archives and Records Administration, Washington (80-G-495657)
Medium Gelatin silver print
The hangar deck that had held the aircraft of the most decorated American ship of the Second World War is filled with rows of cots and men going home. Enterprise sailed to Pearl Harbor in late August 1945 and returned to the United States with some 1,141 servicemen due for discharge, including hospital patients and former prisoners of war. It is the homecoming side of a carrier's life: the ship that had fought from Pearl Harbor to Leyte Gulf turned into a ferry of relief.
The real ship Launched in 1936, Enterprise was the only Yorktown-class carrier to survive the war. She took part in more major actions against Japan than any other American ship, from Pearl Harbor and Midway to Leyte Gulf, and earned 20 battle stars. After the surrender she carried servicemen home in Operation Magic Carpet, from the Pacific and then from Europe.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Saratoga (CV-3) Named ship
USS Saratoga as a Troop Transport in Operation Magic Carpet, c. September 1945
Photographer US Navy photographer (unidentified)
Source Published in All Hands magazine, US Navy, October 1945
Medium Gelatin silver print
After the surrender, the veteran carrier Saratoga was turned into a troop transport for the long voyages home from the Pacific, and this photograph from above shows her flight deck black with men. By the end of her Magic Carpet service she had brought home 29,204 Pacific War veterans, more than any other single ship. It is a homecoming at the scale of a whole navy: one of the service's first carriers, torpedoed twice in the war, spending her last months at sea bringing people back.
The real ship Designed as a battlecruiser and converted to a carrier under the Washington Treaty, Saratoga entered service in 1928. She was torpedoed twice, fought in the Guadalcanal campaign and at the Eastern Solomons, raided Rabaul, served with the British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean, and was one of three prewar fleet carriers to serve throughout the war. In 1946 she was a target in the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests.
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Image: US Navy photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Target fleet at Bikini (including the battleship Nagato and the cruiser Prinz Eugen) Named ship
Operation Crossroads, Baker Test, Bikini Atoll, 25 July 1946
Photographer US Army Photographic Signal Corps / Joint Task Force One
Source US Army Photographic Signal Corps; Defense Threat Reduction Agency
Medium Gelatin silver print
A 21-kiloton nuclear weapon was detonated 27 metres beneath a lagoon full of anchored warships, and the photograph shows the vertical column of water and the vast condensation cloud rising above the target fleet, the ships tiny at its foot. Among the 95 target ships were American warships and three surrendered Axis ships, the Japanese battleship Nagato and cruiser Sakawa and the German cruiser Prinz Eugen. Radioactive spray contaminated the fleet so badly that only nine target ships could be scrapped rather than scuttled.
The real ship Operation Crossroads assembled a fleet of 95 target ships in Bikini Lagoon, including the surrendered Axis ships Nagato, Sakawa and Prinz Eugen. After the Baker test only nine target ships could be scrapped rather than scuttled.
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Image: US Army Photographic Signal Corps / Joint Task Force One, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Exodus 1947 (formerly President Warfield) Named ship
The Exodus 1947 Arriving at Haifa, July 1947
Photographer British Admiralty photographer (unidentified)
Source British Admiralty photograph, reproduced in Steam Packets on the Chesapeake (1961)
Medium Gelatin silver print
A small bay steamer built to carry passengers between Baltimore and Norfolk arrives at Haifa carrying 4,515 Jewish migrants, most of them Holocaust survivors, after being boarded by the Royal Navy in international waters. Her upper decks are packed with people. The photograph shows the ship at the heart of one of the defining stories of 1947: at Haifa ships were waiting to take her passengers back to refugee camps in Europe.
The real ship Built by Pusey and Jones at Wilmington, Delaware, launched in 1927 and completed in 1928 as President Warfield for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company, she served in the Second World War as a British barracks and training ship and as USS President Warfield off Omaha Beach before being renamed Exodus 1947 for Aliyah Bet.
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Image: British Admiralty photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Kon-Tiki Named ship
Expedition Kon-Tiki 1947: Across the Pacific
Photographer Unknown photographer; postcard published by Mittet
Where to see it National Library of Norway, Oslo (blds_05860)
Medium Photograph published as a postcard (colourised)
Thor Heyerdahl and five companions built Kon-Tiki from balsa logs and other native materials in Peru and left Callao on 28 April 1947. After 101 days and 6,900 kilometres they reached the atoll of Raroia on 7 August, and all six survived. This postcard, published in 1947, shows the raft alone on the open Pacific, her big square sail and a smaller sail set, a crewman at the steering oar. A documentary of the voyage won an Academy Award. Heyerdahl's theory of Polynesian settlement has been rejected by later research; the voyage itself remains a feat of seamanship.
The real ship Kon-Tiki was a raft of balsa logs named after the Inca god Viracocha, built in Peru for the 1947 voyage. The original raft is displayed at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Nasjonalbiblioteket from Norway, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Pamir Named ship
Pamir at the Entrance to the English Channel, c. October 1949
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it National Library of Australia, Canberra (nla.pic-vn3257373)
Medium Photograph
Pamir loaded Australian grain at Port Victoria and sailed for Falmouth on a passage of 128 days, and on 11 July 1949 she became the last windjammer to carry a commercial load around Cape Horn. The photograph shows her under full sail at sea, every square sail and staysail drawing on her four masts, a white wave at her bow. It holds the end of the great age of deep-sea trade under sail. Eight years later Pamir herself was lost in Hurricane Carrie, with only six survivors.
The real ship Pamir was built by Blohm and Voss in Hamburg and launched on 29 July 1905 for F. Laeisz, one of their Flying P Liners, and sailed over her life under the German, Italian, Finnish and New Zealand flags. Serving as a German training ship, she capsized in Hurricane Carrie on 21 September 1957; only six were rescued.
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Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Mauretania (1938) Named ship
The Deck of the Mauretania with Passengers and Life Preserver Ring, 1952
Photographer Robert Frank (1924 to 2019)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1991.1140)
Medium Gelatin silver print
Six years before The Americans made him famous, the Swiss-born Robert Frank photographed passengers on the deck of the liner Mauretania beside a life preserver ring. It is the liner seen not as a monument but as a place where people wait, between two worlds. Frank's loose, intimate way of looking already shows here, and the white life ring is the only formal note in a picture about travellers in transit.
The real ship Launched at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead, on 28 July 1938 and completed in May 1939, the second Mauretania was one of the first ships built for the newly formed Cunard White Star company. She sailed until 1965 and was broken up in 1965 to 1966.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS United States Named ship
SS United States Making 35 Knots across the Atlantic, 1952
Photographer Unknown photographer (Arnold Kludas archive)
Where to see it Arnold Kludas archive; reproduced in Kludas, Record Breakers of the North Atlantic (2000)
Medium Aerial photograph
Seen from the air at speed, the United States drives a white bow wave and a long wake across the Atlantic, the liner doing exactly what she was built for. On her maiden voyage in July 1952 she crossed eastbound in three days, ten hours and 40 minutes at an average of 35.59 knots, beating Queen Mary's record by more than ten hours, and she took the Blue Riband in both directions. No liner has beaten her westbound record. By the mid-1960s jet flights across the Atlantic were emptying her cabins.
The real ship United States was designed by William Francis Gibbs and built at Newport News between 1950 and 1951, the largest ocean liner constructed entirely in the United States, and could be converted into a troopship if needed. She was withdrawn from service in November 1969.
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Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Liberté (formerly Europa) Named ship
110 Views and Studies of and from La Liberté Ocean Liner, Related to the Architectural Forum Portfolio Ship Shapes and Shadows, 1956 to 1958
Photographer Walker Evans (1903 to 1975)
Where to see it Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Walker Evans Archive (1994.253.647.1 to .19)
Medium Film negatives
Late in his career Evans made 110 views and studies of and from the French liner Liberté, related to a portfolio for Architectural Forum titled Ship Shapes and Shadows and published in October 1958. The great documentary photographer of American streets turned to the ship's forms, as the portfolio's title says, her shapes and the shadows they throw. The ship itself carried history: a German record-breaker awarded to France after the war to replace the lost Normandie.
The real ship Launched in 1928 as Europa for Norddeutscher Lloyd, sister of Bremen and like her a Blue Riband holder, she was awarded to the French Line as a war prize, refitted at Le Havre and renamed Liberté. She was the French Line's premier ship until 1961, was laid up in 1962 and scrapped at La Spezia in 1963.
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where the original is kept. Photo: Arad, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Andrea Doria Named ship
Sinking of the Andrea Doria, 26 July 1956
Photographer Harry A. Trask (1928 to 2002)
Source Published in newspapers and in Life magazine; Pulitzer Prize for Photography 1957
Medium Gelatin silver print
Flying over the Atlantic off Nantucket in a light aeroplane with a 4x5 Speed Graphic, Trask photographed the Italian Line's Andrea Doria sinking the morning after she collided with Stockholm in thick fog. The picture that won the Pulitzer Prize, the second in his sequence, was taken from a height of 75 feet, nine minutes before she sank. It is a picture of a great liner's last minutes, and also of a rescue: 1,660 of the 1,706 people aboard had been saved.
The real ship Launched on 16 June 1951 and home-ported at Genoa, Andrea Doria began her maiden voyage in January 1953 as the largest, fastest and supposedly safest of Italy's ships. Struck by Stockholm on 25 July 1956, she capsized and sank the next morning; 46 people died as a direct result of the collision.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists.
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Mayflower II Named ship
The Replica Mayflower II in the Atlantic Ocean, 1957
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it MAS (Museum aan de Stroom), Antwerp
Medium Gelatin silver print
In 1957 a replica of the Pilgrims' ship, built at Brixham in Devon with solid oak timbers and tarred hemp rigging, crossed the Atlantic under the command of the sailing ship veteran and photographer Alan Villiers. This photograph from the collections of the MAS in Antwerp shows her masts, yards and bowsprit against a pale sky, a vision of 1620 made real. She reached Plymouth, Massachusetts on 13 June, and New York gave Villiers and his crew a ticker tape parade.
The real ship Built at the Upham Shipyard in Brixham in 1955 to 1956, a collaboration between Warwick Charlton and Plimoth Plantation, Mayflower II crossed the Atlantic in 1957 under Alan Villiers. She was listed on the US National Register of Historic Places in 2020.
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Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Vasa Named ship
Vasa Breaks the Surface, 24 April 1961, 09.03
Photographer Vasa Museum (Vasamuseet), Stockholm
Where to see it Vasa Museum (Vasamuseet), Stockholm
Medium Colour photograph
At three minutes past nine on 24 April 1961, the Swedish warship Vasa broke the surface of Stockholm harbour for the first time in 333 years, and the photograph catches the first worn timbers rising into the light. Press from all over the world, television cameras and invited guests on barges waited for the moment. She had sunk about 1,300 metres into her maiden voyage in August 1628. The picture shows a ship from the reign of Gustavus Adolphus coming back into the world.
The real ship Built on the orders of King Gustavus Adolphus, Vasa sank on her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961, housed in the temporary Wasavarvet until 1988 and then moved permanently to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm.
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Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
SS Great Britain Named ship
The Hulk of SS Great Britain on the Pontoon Mulus III, 1970
Photographer Unknown photographer
Where to see it Private collection (published on Flickr, 2019)
Medium Photograph
Great Britain spent her last working years in the Falkland Islands as a storage hulk and in 1937 was towed to Sparrow Cove and scuttled. In 1970, paid for by Sir Jack Hayward, she was raised onto the submersible pontoon Mulus III and towed home, reaching Barry Docks on 22 June before going on to the Bristol dry dock where she had been built 127 years earlier. The photograph shows the rusted, mastless hull riding high on the pontoon, a tug at the left. It is a picture of a return from the dead.
The real ship Great Britain was launched at Bristol on 19 July 1843. After service as an emigrant ship to Australia and later as a cargo carrier, she was a storage hulk in the Falklands until scuttled in 1937; returned to Bristol in 1970, she is a museum ship in Bristol Harbour on the National Historic Fleet register.
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Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Midway (CV-41) Named ship
Major Buang Lands His Cessna O-1 on USS Midway, 29 April 1975
Photographer US Navy photographer aboard USS Midway (unidentified)
Source US Navy; published in Naval Aviation News, July 1975
Medium Photograph
During the evacuation of Saigon in April 1975, the pilot of a South Vietnamese Cessna O-1 circled the carrier Midway and dropped a note on her deck asking for the helicopters to be moved so that he could land; he had his wife and five children aboard. Captain L. C. Chambers ordered the landing area cleared, and an estimated ten million dollars' worth of Huey helicopters were pushed overboard into the South China Sea. Major Buang bounced once, touched down and taxied to a halt with room to spare, the first fixed-wing pilot of his air force ever to land on a carrier.
“Can you move these helicopter to the other side, I can land on your runway”
The real ship Midway was among the US Navy ships that received evacuees during Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of Saigon in April 1975. Major Buang's Cessna O-1 Bird Dog is displayed at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Navy photographer aboard USS Midway, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Amerigo Vespucci Named ship
Amerigo Vespucci at the Parade of Sail, New York Harbor, Bicentennial, July 1976
Photographer Harley D. Nygren (1924 to 2019)
Where to see it NOAA Photo Library, America's Coastlines Collection (corp2248)
Medium Photograph
For the United States Bicentennial in July 1976, tall ships from around the world sailed in parade through New York harbour, and the NOAA photographer Harley Nygren recorded the Italian Navy's Amerigo Vespucci among them. She moves through a crowd of small craft under square sails and staysails, her crew manning the yards and her hull painted in black and white bands. Her design drew on the 74-gun ships of the line of the late eighteenth century, and amid the modern harbour she is a floating memory of the age of sail.
The real ship Amerigo Vespucci was built at Castellammare di Stabia and launched on 22 February 1931, to a design inspired by late eighteenth-century 74-gun ships of the line. Based at La Spezia, she remains in service as the Italian Navy's training ship, carrying 26 sails on three steel masts.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Harley D. Nygren, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Amoco Cadiz Named ship
Amoco Cadiz Grounding and Oil Spill, Brittany, March 1978
Photographer NOAA photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Response and Restoration
Medium Colour photograph
On 16 March 1978 the tanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground on Portsall Rocks, two kilometres off the coast of Brittany, and in the following days split in three and sank. NOAA's photograph of the sinking tanker shows her deck awash with waves breaking over the hull. The spill was the largest of its kind at the time, and the ship broken on the rocks became the image of that disaster for the Breton coast.
The real ship Owned by Amoco, Amoco Cadiz ran aground on Portsall Rocks on 16 March 1978, split in three and sank, releasing about 220,880 tonnes of oil according to NOAA.
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Image: NOAA photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Mary Rose Named ship
The Raising of the Mary Rose, 11 October 1982
Photographer Mary Rose Trust photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it Mary Rose Trust, Portsmouth
Medium Photograph
Henry VIII's warship sank in the Solent on 19 July 1545 during an action against a French fleet, and her hull lay hidden until winter storms began to uncover it in 1971. After years of excavation her surviving timbers were fixed in a cradle beneath a steel lifting frame, and on 11 October 1982, watched by the Prince of Wales and spectators in boats, the first timbers broke the surface at 9.03 in the morning. The photograph shows the dark hull at last clear of the water in its yellow cradle. At one point a corner of the frame slipped more than a metre and came close to crushing part of the hull.
The real ship Mary Rose was launched in July 1511 and served for 34 years in several wars, being substantially rebuilt in 1536. She sank on 19 July 1545; her hull and many artefacts, raised by the Mary Rose Trust, are preserved at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
USS Iowa (BB-61) Named ship
USS Iowa Fires a Full Broadside near Vieques Island, 1 July 1984
Photographer PHAN J. Alan Elliott, US Navy
Source US Department of Defense (Defense Visual Information)
Medium Colour photograph
During a target exercise near Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, Iowa fired a full broadside of her nine 16-inch and six 5-inch guns, and the photograph, taken from above, shows the result: great clouds of flame and smoke from the barrels, rings of concussion pressed into the sea, and the 16-inch barrels caught at different stages of recoil. Taken in the year she was reactivated, it shows a battleship of the Second World War brought back into service in the 1980s.
The real ship Laid down at the New York Naval Shipyard in 1940 and commissioned in February 1943, Iowa carried President Roosevelt to Mers El Kébir on his way to the Tehran conference and served in the Pacific and in Korea. Reactivated in 1984 and decommissioned for the last time in 1990, she is now a museum ship at Los Angeles.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: PHAN J. Alan Elliott, US Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Titanic Named ship
First Images of the Wreck of the Titanic, Transmitted by Argo, 1 to 2 September 1985
Photographer Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and IFREMER expedition (Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel)
Source Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
Medium Video and still images
After a week of fruitless searching, at 12.48 in the morning on 1 September 1985, pieces of debris began to appear on the screens aboard the research vessel Knorr. One of them was a boiler identical to those shown in pictures from 1911. The next day Argo sent back the first pictures of Titanic since she sank 73 years before, and the discovery made headlines around the world. A grainy shape on a monitor turned a legend back into a ship.
The real ship Titanic sank on 15 April 1912 after striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage. Her wreck lies at about 3,800 metres, some 600 kilometres south-south-east of Newfoundland, in two main pieces about 600 metres apart, and is protected by a UNESCO convention.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
RMS Titanic Named ship
Titanic's Bow and Grand Staircase, Photographed from Alvin and Jason Jr., July 1986
Photographer Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution expedition led by Robert Ballard
Source Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
Medium Photographs
In July 1986 Ballard returned aboard Atlantis II, and the submersible Alvin carried people down to Titanic for the first time. The small remotely operated vehicle Jason Jr. descended the ruined Grand Staircase as far as B Deck and photographed remarkably well-preserved interiors, with chandeliers still hanging from the ceilings. These pictures of the bow and the rooms within gave the world its lasting image of the wreck: not a pile of scrap but a ship, asleep in the dark.
The real ship The bow section of Titanic remains recognisable with many preserved interiors despite damage from striking the sea floor; the stern is heavily damaged. The debris field holds hundreds of thousands of objects.
Sources Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Exxon Valdez Named ship
Exxon Valdez Aground in Prince William Sound, March 1989
Photographer NOAA photographer (unidentified)
Where to see it National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of Response and Restoration
Medium Colour photograph
Just after midnight on 24 March 1989 the tanker Exxon Valdez ran onto Bligh Reef, and within six hours some 10.9 million gallons of crude oil had spilled into Prince William Sound. The photographs of the stranded ship, in a remote place reachable only by helicopter, plane or boat, turned one tanker into the emblem of a new environmental age. Afterwards single-hulled tankers were phased out, and it was hearing about that danger that first sent the photographer Edward Burtynsky to the shipbreaking beaches of Asia.
The real ship Built by National Steel and Shipbuilding Company in San Diego and delivered to Exxon on 16 December 1986, the 301-metre single-hulled tanker was repaired after the spill, renamed several times, and finally beached for scrapping at Alang, India, on 2 August 2012 as Oriental Nicety.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons · edwardburtynsky.com
Image: NOAA photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Vlora Named ship
The Vlora in the Port of Bari, Crowded with Albanian Migrants, 8 August 1991
Photographer Luca Turi
Medium Photograph
The Vlora was under repair at Durrës after a voyage from Cuba when, on 7 August 1991, thousands of Albanians fleeing economic collapse and political turmoil boarded her. Captain Halim Milaqi decided to sail the overcrowded ship for Italy, running on her backup motors, and after Brindisi she was directed to Bari. Luca Turi's photograph of her at the Bari quay shows a ship turned into a crowd, people packed on every deck and covering the mole beside her. Between 10,000 and more than 20,000 people were aboard, and in 2015 images of the scene were misused as fake news.
The real ship Vlora was built in 1960 at Ancona as the Ilice and sold in 1961 to a Sino-Albanian shipping company, sailing from Durrës under the Albanian flag. She was deregistered in 1996 and scrapped at Aliağa in Turkey.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Tankers and cargo ships being dismantled on the beaches at Chittagong Unnamed
Shipbreaking, Chittagong, Bangladesh (series), 2000 to 2001
Photographer Edward Burtynsky (born 1955)
Where to see it Studio of Edward Burtynsky, Toronto (prints in many public collections)
Medium Chromogenic colour prints
Burtynsky's large colour photographs show the hulls of retired tankers on the shipbreaking beaches of Bangladesh. He said the idea came about four years after the Exxon Valdez disaster, when he heard a radio programme about the danger of single-hulled ships and wondered where these massive vessels would be taken apart; it would be, he said, a study of humanity and the skill it takes to dismantle them. His studio writes that the photographs appear as images of the end of time.
“I looked upon the shipbreaking as the ultimate in recycling, in this case of the largest vessels ever made.”
The vessels The Chittagong ship-breaking yard lies along the 18-kilometre Sitakunda coastal strip north-west of Chittagong and handles about a fifth of the world's shipbreaking.
Sources edwardburtynsky.com · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows the ship-breaking beaches of Chittagong. Photo: Ctg4Rahat, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Deepwater Horizon and platform supply vessels Named ship
Platform Supply Vessels Battle the Fire on Deepwater Horizon, April 2010
Photographer US Coast Guard helicopter crew (unidentified)
Source US Coast Guard
Medium Digital photograph
Anchor handling tugs and platform supply vessels turn their water cannon on the burning Deepwater Horizon while the Coast Guard searches for missing crew. The blowout of 20 April 2010 killed eleven workers and led to the largest accidental marine oil spill of all time. In the photograph a ball of flame and a column of black smoke rise over the rig, and the small red and blue ships arcing water into the fire give the disaster its scale, and a picture of disaster its stubborn courage.
The real ship Deepwater Horizon was a semi-submersible drilling unit owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect, about 64 kilometres south-east of the Louisiana coast. There were 126 people aboard when she exploded; the Coast Guard responded with cutters, helicopters and a rescue plane.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: US Coast Guard helicopter crew, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Costa Concordia Named ship
Costa Concordia Capsized off Isola del Giglio, 14 January 2012
Photographer Rvongher
Medium Digital photograph
The cruise ship lies heeled far over off Isola del Giglio, a wall of white decks tipped towards the sea, seen past the red harbour light and a row of her own orange lifeboats moored in the port. On 13 January 2012 she had deviated from her planned route for a sail-by salute, struck a rock formation on the sea floor, listed and partially sank on an underwater ledge. Thirty-two people died. Her captain, who left the ship with passengers still aboard, was later convicted of manslaughter. Her empty lifeboats in the foreground say the rest.
The real ship After the disaster Costa Concordia was righted by parbuckling in September 2013, refloated with sponsons and towed to Genoa in July 2014, where her scrapping was completed in July 2017.
Sources Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Ever Given Named ship
The Ever Given Stuck in the Suez Canal, Seen from the International Space Station, 27 March 2021
Photographer Crew of the International Space Station (NASA Johnson Space Center)
Where to see it NASA Johnson Space Center, Earth Observations (ISS064-E-48480)
Medium Digital photograph from orbit
From orbit a ship 400 metres long is a sliver, yet this one had blocked one of the world's great trade routes. On the morning of 23 March 2021, caught in a sandstorm with winds above 40 knots, Ever Given ran aground and wedged across the Suez Canal with her bow and stern stuck on opposite banks. An astronaut's photograph of 27 March shows her lying diagonally in the thin blue line of the canal, tugs at her stern, desert on one side and green fields on the other. For six days nothing could pass.
The real ship Ever Given is a container ship 400 metres long, of 20,000 TEU and about 224,000 tons. She was freed on 29 March 2021 after a salvage operation managed by Smit International, a Boskalis subsidiary, for the Suez Canal Authority.
Sources eol.jsc.nasa.gov · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Commons
Image: Crew of the International Space Station, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photographs 1920 to today · Photograph
Endurance Named ship
The Stern of Endurance on the Floor of the Weddell Sea, March 2022
Photographer Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust and National Geographic (Endurance22 expedition)
Source Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
Medium Digital photograph
Nearly 107 years after she sank, Shackleton's Endurance was found 3,008 metres down in the Weddell Sea by the Endurance22 expedition, working from the South African polar ship Agulhas II. The image of her stern, with the name ENDURANCE arced directly below the taffrail above the polestar emblem, felt like a message across a century. The wreck is upright and intact, and the expedition's director of exploration called it the finest wooden shipwreck he had ever seen.
“This is by far the finest wooden shipwreck I have ever seen. It is upright, well proud of the seabed, intact”
The real ship Designed by Ole Aanderud Larsen and built at the Framnæs shipyard, Sandefjord, Norway, the three-masted barquentine carried Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914 and sank in the Weddell Sea on 21 November 1915 after being trapped in the ice. Her wreck, found in March 2022, is a protected historic site and monument under the Antarctic Treaty System.
Sources endurance22.org · Wikipedia
No free image of this work exists. The photograph shows Stanley, Falkland Islands. Photo: HaSt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. See the source
Explore Ships in Paintings by chapter
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