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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
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inv. 195
Sooloo Pirate's Proa
Gooloo Pirate's Prow
1850s Graphite on paper 9 1/2 x 14 in. (24.1 x 35.6 cm) Inscribed lower left (in pencil): Among Lane's papers; Inscribed lower right (in pencil): Sooloo pirate's prow; Inscribed (in pencil on boat): red / yellow / red / red
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Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)
the Artist, Gloucester, Mass.
Joseph L. Stevens, Jr., Gloucester, Mass.
Samuel H. Mansfield, Gloucester, Mass.
Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Mass., 1927
Marks & Labels
Marks: Inscribed upper left (in red ink): 52 [numbering system used by curator A. M. Brooks upon Samuel H. Mansfield's donation of the drawings to the Cape Ann Museum]
Exhibition History
No known exhibitions.Published References
Paintings and Drawings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 1974., fig. 129.
Craig, James. Fitz H. Lane: An Artist's Voyage through Nineteenth-Century America. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2006., fig. 36, text, p. 68, Sooloo Pirate's Proa.
Commentary
While many variants of the “proa” – or “perahu” – are double-hull craft (what we call “catamarans”), there are some monohull types common to Malaysia, some of which are quite sizeable. This large example may represent a “perahu pukay,” a type favored by pirates operating in the Sulu Sea between Borneo and the Philippines. Its two quarter rudders, two masts with lug sails, and sixteen pairs of oars closely match the type’s definition. In addition, it is heavily manned, armed with cannon at bow and stern, and fitted with a boarding ramp ready for lowering.
To judge from color notations, Lane probably copied this image from a painting or a colored print which may have been bound in one of the sizeable reports of explorations published by French or English expeditions to the Far East.
–Erik Ronnberg
Reference:
“Aak to Zumbra: A Dictionary of the World’s Watercraft” (Newport News, Virginia: The Mariners’ Museum, 2000), pp. 444-447 (particularly p. 446, bottom right column).