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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. 443
Steam packet ship Mass., in a Squall, Nov. 10, 1845
Steam Packet Ship Mass. in a Squall, Nov. 10, 1845; Steam Packet Ship Massachusetts in a Squall Nov. 10, 1845; Steam Ship "Massachusetts" in a Squall, 1845
Lithograph Tinted (two stones: black key stone and gray-green tint stone) on paper 10 13/16 x 15 3/16 in. (27.5 x 38.5 cm) F.H. Lane del.
Lane & Scott's Lith., Tremont Temple Collections:
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Related Work in the Catalog
Exhibition History
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts, New England Prints Before 1850, April 7–May 16, 1976. [Impression: American Antiquarian Society (inv. 371)].
Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, Opsail, June 5–September 25, 2000. [Impression: Portland Museum of Art (inv. 69)].
Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts, Collecting for the Boston Athenaeum in the 21st Century: Prints & Photographs, April 6–September 4, 2016. [Impression: Boston Athenaeum (inv. 687)].
Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Massachusetts, Drawn From Nature & on Stone: The Lithographs of Fitz Henry Lane, October 7, 2017–March 4, 2018. [Impression: Boston Athenaeum (inv. 687)].
Published References
Wilmderding, John. "The Lithographs of Fitz Hugh Lane." Old-Time New England LIV, no. 2 (October–December 1963)., p. 33, Steam Ship "Massachusetts" in a Squall, 1845.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804–1865: American Marine Painter. Salem, MA: The Essex Institute, 1964., p.70.
American Arts Auction. May 14, 1983., #44, Steam Packet Ship Mass. in a Squall, Nov. 10, 1845. [Impression: Portland Museum of Art (inv. 69)].
Craig, James. Fitz H. Lane: An Artist's Voyage through Nineteenth-Century America. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2006., p. 63.
Barnhill, Trafton. Drawn from Nature & on Stone: the Lithographs of Fitz Henry Lane. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Museum, 2017., fig. 56, Steam packet ship Mass., in a Squall, Nov. 10, 1845. [Impression: Boston Athenaeum (inv. 687)]. ⇒ includes 
text
text
Barnhill, Georgia B. "Fitz Henry Lane and Coastal New England." Imprint: Journal of the American Historical Print Collectors Society Volume 46, Number 2 (Autumn 2021)., fig. 10. ⇒ includes text
textImpression information
American Antiquarian Society (inv. 371)
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Photo: Courtesy, American Antiquarian Society (inv. 371)
Printed below image from left to right: F.H. Lane del. Lane & Scott's Lith. Tremont Temple Center / STEAM PACKET SHIP MASS, IN SQUALL, NOV. 10, 1845.
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. (150237)
Provenance
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.
Boston Athenaeum (inv. 687)
enlarge
Photo: Boston Athenaeum (inv. 687)
(printed lower left under image) F.H. Lane del.
(printed lower right under image) Lane & Scott's Lith., Tremont Temple.
Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts (2015.17)
Provenance
Boston Athenaeum, 2015
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. 492)
Steam Packet Ship Massachusetts in a Squall Nov. 10, 1845
F.H. Lane, del.
Lane & Scott's Lithography, Tremont Temple.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Provenance
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Peabody Essex Museum (inv. 668)
F.H. Lane del.
Lane & Scott's Lith., Tremont Temple.
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. (M11338)
Provenance
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.
Peabody Essex Museum (inv. 669)
F.H. Lane del.
Lane & Scott's Lith., Tremont Temple.
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., F.L. Higginson Collection (M26087)
Provenance
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., F.L. Higginson Collection
Peabody Essex Museum (inv. 670)
F.H. Lane del.
Lane & Scott's Lith., Tremont Temple.
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass. (MB418)
Provenance
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass.
Portland Museum of Art (inv. 69)
Steam Packet Ship Mass. in a Squall, Nov. 10, 1845
Printed below image from left to right: F.H. Lane del. Lane & Scott's Lith. Tremont Temple
Center / STEAM PACKET SHIP MASS, IN SQUALL, NOV. 10, 1845.
Portland Museum of Art, Maine, Museum purchase (1983.58)
Provenance
C.E. Guarino, Denmark, Maine, 1983
Portland Museum of Art, Maine, 1983
Commentary
This lithograph was drawn by Lane and printed by Lane & Scott. It is likely that the print was produced for, and published by, R.B.Forbes.
The packet ship “Massachusetts” was the third engine-powered vessel to be built for Robert Bennet Forbes, and the largest American auxiliary steamship for mercantile use at the time. Built at the East Boston shipyard of Samuel Hall, she had the lines of a conventional packet ship, the hull being full-ended to accommodate a large cargo, but carefully modeled to achieve moderate speed. The first voyages of the “Massachusetts" were between New York and Liverpool, therein exposing the weakness of her power plant.
Lane probably made this undated lithograph in 1846, the year following the date on the print on which “Massachusetts” encountered a late autumn squall. It shows the vessel sharply heeled, her staysail and jibs torn, the main course’s weather tack and sheet parted, and squaresails aloft flogging wildly. Lane also made another print of the "Massachusetts" Auxiliary Steam Packet Ship Massachusetts (inv. 442). Forbes’s optimism for this vessel’s future could not have lasted long and whatever promotional value the images had for this venture would soon dissipate, hence their scarcity.
– Erik Ronnberg
References:
Robert Bennet Forbes, “Personal Reminiscences” (Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., 1892), pp. 208-217.
Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, “American Steamships on the Atlantic” (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 1981), pp. 89 -97.