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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. 197
Cunard Steamship Entering Boston Harbor
Study of Vessels
Graphite on paper 4 1/8 x 5 5/8 in. (10.5 x 14.3 cm) Inscribed lower right (in pencil): Lane del.; Inscribed verso (in pencil): Joseph L. Stevens Jr. to George S. Blanchard / Gloucester April 5, 1866
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Related Work in the Catalog
Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)
Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Mass.
Exhibition History
No known exhibitions.Published References
Wilmerding, John. Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1988., ill. in b/w p. 71 fig. 12, Cunard Steamship Entering Boston Harbor.
Dunlap, Sarah, and Stephanie Buck. Fitz Henry Lane: Family and Friends. Gloucester, MA: Church & Mason Publishing; in association with the Cape Ann Historical Museum, 2007., ill., p. 48, Study of Vessels, A small pencil sketch by Lane given to Joseph L. Stevens Jr. to George A. Blanchard, April 5, 1886.
Commentary
Scheduled transatlantic passenger and freight service was established by the Cunard Line in 1840, using four specially designed steamships to make crossings between Liverpool and Boston every two weeks. These were the side-wheel steamship “Britannia,” followed by her sister ships “Acadia,” “Caledonia,” and “Columbia.”
Lane’s drawing depicts the arrival in Boston of one of these early (but unidentified) Cunard liners. She is in the company of a coastal steamer – also unidentified – but from the latter’s hull form and cross-head steam engine, this drawing could possibly date to the mid-1840s.
While quickly drawn, the liner’s hull and rigging proportions are accurate and there is a sense of forward motion in the choppy sea. This image would require some refinement for a painting by Lane, but it captures a moment in the arrival of new technology that would transform marine transportation in coming decades.
–Erik Ronnberg