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. 259
Cunard Liner "Britannia"
"Brittannia"; Ship in a gale, Brittania; Steamer Britannia in a Gale
1842 Oil on canvas 30 1/4 x 42 in. (76.8 x 106.7 cm) Signed and dated lower right: F.H. Lane 1842
|
Related Work in the Catalog
Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)
Francis Lee Higginson, Jr.
Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., 1957
Exhibition History
DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts, Fitz Hugh Lane: The First Major Exhibition, March 20–April 17, 1966., no. 1.
Traveled to: Colby College Art Museum, Waterville, Maine, 30–6, 1966.
Traveled to: Colby College Art Museum, Waterville, Maine, 30–6, 1966.
John Wilmerding, William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, Rockland, Maine, Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1805, July 12–September 15, 1974., no. 14, ill., lent by the Peabody Museum of Salem.
Published References
Sharf, Frederic Alan. "Fitz Hugh Lane Re-Considered." Essex Institute Historical Collections Vol. 96 (January 1960)., p. 77, "Brittannia". ⇒ includes 
text
text
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804–1865: American Marine Painter. Salem, MA: The Essex Institute, 1964., p. 39.
The American Neptune, Pictorial Supplement VII: A Selection of Marine Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804–1865. Salem, MA: The American Neptune, 1965., pl. XXX, no. 6. ⇒ includes text
text
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane: The First Major Exhibition. Lincoln, MA: De Cordova Museum; in association with Colby College Art Museum, 1966., no. 1. ⇒ includes text
text
Brewington, Dorothy. Marine Paintings and Drawings in the Peabody Museum. Salem, MA: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1968., no. 755, p. 166.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Hugh Lane. New York: Praeger, 1971., p. 22.
Fitz Hugh Lane 1804-1865. Rockland, ME: William A. Farnsworth Library and Art Museum, 1974., no. 14, ill.
Hoffman, Katherine. "The Art of Fitz Hugh Lane." Essex Institute Historical Collections 119 (1983)., p. 30, Ship in a gale, Brittania.
Wilmerding, John. Fitz Henry Lane. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 2005. Reprint of Fitz Hugh Lane, by John Wilmerding. New York: Praeger, 1971. Includes new information regarding the artist's name., ill. 22, Cunard Liner "Britannia".
Craig, James. Fitz H. Lane: An Artist's Voyage through Nineteenth-Century America. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2006., fig. 34.
Commentary
The transatlantic passenger steamer "Britannia" was built by the Scottish shipbuilder Robert Napier for the Canadian entrepreneur Samuel Cunard. One of four sister ships (the other three, built in separate yards, were named "Acadia," "Caledonia," and "Columbia"), she entered service in 1840. Leaving Liverpool for Boston via Halifax, she arrived in Boston to a warm welcome after a two-week voyage. (1)
"Britannia" experienced her share of adverse weather and heavy seas. Her crossings to Boston in April 1841 and January 1842 were particularly stormy, which inspired Lane’s two very similar depictions of those voyages. Charles Dickens was in the 1842 storm and wrote about it eloquently, and it could be that famous 1842 crossing which is depicted in this painting.
One version of the painting was exhibited at Oakes Music Store in Boston in 1841. Lane also exhibited one at the 1842 Boston Art Association exhibition, and reportedly offered to sell a 1842 version to the Cunard Line. The firm refused, no doubt feeling that the hazards it depicted were too discouraging for potential passengers. (2)
In 1842, the Liverpool artist Samuel Walters portrayed the Boston packet "Nonantum" in a stormy Atlantic crossing to Liverpool with a westbound Cunard steamer riding a mountainous wave on the horizon. "Nonantum" returned to Boston in the summer of that year, presumably with her portrait onboard for delivery to its owner. Assuming Lane saw this painting, the background detail may well have been the inspiration for this, his second depiction of "Britannia." (3)
Lane may well have borrowed more from Walters’s painting. The fine brushwork in the wave crests has no precedent in his earlier known work. Likewise, the light and shadows in waves and clouds bear close resemblance to those seen in Walters’s more dramatic at-sea paintings. In both the Lane and Walters depictions, the light bursting through the clouds silhouettes the hulls and rigging, while reflected light in the foam contrasts dramatically with the dark hulls. The net results portray violent forces of nature stressing the laboring ships to their limits. Yet for all this violence, both artists employ the most delicate brushwork on the wavelets and ripples that lend realism to the water.
– Erik Ronnberg
References:
1. Paul Forsythe Johnson, Steam and the Sea (Salem, MA: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1983), 61–65.
2. Ibid., 63
3. Daniel Finamore, et al., Across the Western Ocean: American Ships by Liverpool Artists (Salem, MA: Peabody Essex Museum, 1995), 18; (essay by A.S. Davidson), 48.