Catalog entry

Commentary

The brig "Antelope" was built at East Boston in 1843 by Samuel Hall for the firm of Russell and Co. Robert Bennett Forbes was then a partner in that firm and oversaw the brig’s design and construction. Under the command of Philip Dumaresq, her first captain, the resulting vessel proved to be exceptionally fast. At that time, Dumaresq was regarded as Boston’s most able shipmaster.

Built for the opium trade, "Antelope" left Boston in 1843 and spent her entire career smuggling opium into China. She never returned to her home port. Dismasted in a typhoon in 1848, she was rerigged as a bark but was never as fast as before. She was wrecked on a reef near Wusong, China, in 1852. (1)

The date on Lane’s painting (1863) postdates "Antelope's" departure from Boston by twenty years and her loss by eleven years, suggesting that the painting was commissioned by a relative (perhaps Francis Dumaresq) as a memorial to the vessel and to Captain Dumaresq (d. 1861). The brig’s longtime absence from Boston makes it unlikely that Lane had the opportunity to make sketches, let alone a painting, during her existence. His likeliest source was a painting showing "Antelope" posed with its sails trimmed in just the same way, and in the same location in Boston Harbor. The crude depiction of the Boston skyline in that painting adds to the probability that it is of Chinese origin. (2)

Lane’s version has made clearer this image’s narrative content. "Antelope" is depicted as having just arrived in port (an imagined return from China is presumed). She is hove to off East Boston, with foresails aback and her yawl boat in tow astern, ready to bring the captain ashore to report to the Custom House with ship’s papers and cargo manifest. While conjecture has placed Lane in the yawl boat in right foreground, the facial features—most notably the sideburns—bear a closer resemblance to Captain Dumaresq, reinforcing the argument that this painting is a memorial to both the vessel and her first master. (3)

The Boston skyline is typical of Lane’s depictions of this port, whether from Governor’s Island or, in this case, East Boston. This painting’s panoramic view is bounded by Charlestown and the Navy Yard on the right, and Boston Neck and Fort Point Channel on the left. It is also time specific to the mid-1840s, with towers, steeples, and other prominent structures of later dates omitted.

– Erik Ronnberg

References:

1. Robert Bennett Forbes, Personal Reminiscences (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1892), 21, appendix: “List of Vessels."

2. State Street Trust Company, Old Shipping Days in Boston (Boston: State Street Trust, 1913), 12; and State Street Trust Company, Other Merchants and Sea Captains of Old Boston (Boston: State Street Trust, 1919), 21–25.

3. Ibid., 22.

Supplementary Images

Probable Chinese original painting on which Lane based his work. Reproduced in Old Shipping Days ... [more]in Boston (Boston: State Street Trust Company, 1918). Caption reads: "Antelope," one of Russell and Co.'s most celebrated clippers, sailed by Captain Philip Dumaresq." The Boston skyline is a rough approximation.