loading 
Fitz Henry Lane
HISTORICAL ARCHIVE • CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ • EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
Catalog entry
|
inv. 253
Clipper Ship "Southern Cross" in Boston Harbor
Clipper Ship "Southern Cross" Leaving Boston Harbor; Ship "Southern Cross" in Boston Harbor; Ship "Southern Cross" Leaving Boston Harbor
1851 Oil on canvas 34 1/4 x 47 in. (87 x 119.4 cm) Signed and dated lower right: F.H. Lane 1851
|
Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)
Stephen Wheatland
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., 1987
Exhibition History
John Wilmerding, William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1805, July 12–September 15, 1974., no. 23, Ship "Southern Cross" Leaving Boston Harbor, lent by Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Wheatland.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, District of Columbia, Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, May 15–September 5, 1988., no. 31, ill. in color, p. 58.
Traveled to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 5–31, 1988.
Traveled to: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass., 5–31, 1988.
Published References
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane. New York: Praeger, 1971.
Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1865. Rockland, ME: William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, 1974., no. 23, ill., Ship "Southern Cross" Leaving Boston Harbor.
Wilmerding, John. Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1988., no. 31, ills., pp. 58 (in color), 73 (in b/w).
Craig, James. Fitz H. Lane: An Artist's Voyage through Nineteenth-Century America. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2006., pl. 14.
Craig, James. "Fitz Henry Lane: An Affinity for the Sea." Fine Art Connoisseur: The Premier Magazine for Important Collectors 3, Issue 4 (August 2006)., ill., p. 26.
Commentary
Lane is known to have painted two pictures of "Southern Cross": this painting and The Ships "Winged Arrow" and "Southern Cross" in Boston Harbor, 1853 (inv. 54). When this picture was painted in 1851, the medium clipper "Southern Cross" had just been finished by a shipyard in South Boston. She was named for what her owners regarded as the most beautiful constellation in the Southern Hemisphere.
The vessel "Southern Cross" experienced more than her fair share of adversity, with contrary winds, dismastings, and a fire preventing her from making the quick passages her owners expected. Her career ended abruptly when the Confederate cruiser "Florida" captured and burned her in June of 1863.
– Erik Ronnberg