Catalog entry

Commentary

The clipper ship “National Eagle” was built at Medford, Massachusetts, by Joshua T. Foster in 1852 for Fisher & Co. of Boston. Sailed in her first year in the “triangle run” between  Boston, New Orleans, and Liverpool, she then made a passage of 134 days from Boston to San Francisco, returning to Boston via Calcutta. The result of this voyage led her owners to put her in the ice trade, taking ice to Calcutta and returning with mixed cargos. In 1863, her voyages between Boston and San Francisco were resumed with numerous extended voyages to other Pacific ports.

In 1865, “National Eagle” was sold to Bates, Holbrook & Candage of Boston, making voyages to numerous ports around the world, though not to any consistent trading route. Sold subsequently to two other shipping firms and registered in New York, she lasted until 1884, when she was wrecked in the Adriatic Sea while bound from New York to Fiume, Austria. Her life span, thirty-one years, was matched or exceeded by very few other clipper ships.

Lane’s painting depicts “National Eagle” outbound from Boston, hove-to with her main sails aback, waiting for the pilot schooner’s yawl boat to row over and pick up the pilot who guided her out of Boston Harbor. She will then proceed on her voyage. This broadside view comes as close as any other Lane vessel portrait in conforming to ship-portrait standards for shipping firms. Lane clearly was not interested in making formalized vessel portraits of ships posed broadside, with all sail set, close-hauled, and drawing perfectly. He constantly varied the settings, weather conditions, and likely situations that were realistic—sometimes threatening, but always depicting competent ship handling.

Lane also had an astute eye for weather and sea conditions. In this case, the fine weather in the foreground is threatened by an approaching front with cirrocumulus and altocumulus clouds leading a darkening bank of cumulonimbus clouds. “National Eagle” will probably have a summer warm front to weather on her maiden voyage to New Orleans.

– Erik Ronnberg

Supplementary Images

The overall infrared image of this ship portrait is an example of how radically Lane can change his ... [more]original underdrawn idea to an entirely different composition. The main sails of the central ship are entirely different from drawing to painting and the distant ships at right have also been changed. – Marcia Steele

Photo: J. Neubecker, Cleveland Museum of Art
© Cape Ann Museum

Portrait of the "National Eagle" (detail of pilot schooner with pilot being rowed to the ship)

Photo: © Cape Ann Museum