14 Classic Marine Paintings - With Footnotes, #19

Ilya Repin, (1844–1930)

Title Barge haulers on the Volga, 1870 - 1873

Oil on canvas

131.5 × 281 cm (51.8 × 110.6 in)

State Russian Museum, St Petersburg, Russian 

Barge Haulers on the Volga is an 1870–73 oil-on-canvas painting by the Russian realist painter and sculptor Ilya Repin. The work depicts 11 laboring men dragging a barge on the Volga River. The men seem to almost collapse forward in exhaustion under the burden of hauling a large boat upstream in heavy, hot weather. More

Ilya Yefimovich Repin (5 August 1844 – 29 September 1930) was the most renowned Russian artist of the 19th century. He played a major role in bringing Russian art into the mainstream of European culture. His major works include Barge Haulers on the Volga (1873), Religious Procession in Kursk Province (1883) and Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks (1880–91).

Repin was born in Chuguyev, in the Kharkov Governorate (now Ukraine) of the Russian Empire into a military family. He entered military school in 1854 and in 1856 studied under Ivan Bunakov, a local icon painter. He began to paint around 1860. In 1874–1876 he showed at the Salon in Paris and at the exhibitions of the Itinerants' Society in Saint Petersburg. He was awarded the title of academician in 1876.

In 1901 he was awarded the Legion of Honour. In 1911 he traveled to the World Exhibition in Italy, where his painting 17 October 1905 and his portraits were displayed in their own separate room. In 1916 Repin worked on his book of reminiscences, Far and Near. He welcomed the Russian Revolution of 1917. Celebrations were held in 1924 in Kuokkala to mark Repin's 80th birthday, followed by an exhibition of his works in Moscow. In 1925 a jubilee exhibition of his works was held in the Russian Museum in Leningrad. Repin died in 1930 and was buried at the Penates. More

Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1847–1928)

Towing on the Nile, c. 1875

Oil on canvas

88.9 × 149.8 cm (35 × 59 in)

Private collection

Frederick Arthur Bridgman (November 10, 1847 - 1928) was an American artist, born in Tuskegee, Alabama. The son of a physician, Bridgman would become one of the United States' most well-known and well-regarded painters and become known as one of the world's most talented "Orientalist" painters. He began as a draughtsman in New York City, for the American Bank Note Company in 1864-1865, and studied art in the same years at the Brooklyn Art Association and at the National Academy of Design; but he went to Paris in 1866 and became a pupil of Jean-Leon Gerome. Paris then became his headquarters. A trip to Egypt in 1873-1874 resulted in pictures of the East that attracted immediate attention, and his large and important composition, The Funeral Procession of a Mummy on the Nile, in the Paris Salon (1877), bought by James Gordon Bennett, brought him the Cross of the Legion of Honor. Other paintings by him were An American Circus in Normandy, Procession of the Bull Apis (now in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and a Rumanian Lady (in the Temple collection, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). More

MILTON JAMES BURNS, (American, 1853-1933)

Toilers of the Sea c. 1878,

Oil on canvas, 24 x 40 in.

Private Collection

To toil is to work hard. A toiler works strenuously. People with physical jobs such as construction workers and miners are often referred to as toilers. 

MILTON JAMES BURNS, (American, 1853-1933) was a student of J.G. Brown and a founding member of the Salmagundi Sketch Club in 1871. During his most prolific period, from 1871-1899, Burns worked both as a painter and illustrator. His primary income was from illustration and his works were published in Harper's Weekly, Scribner's and Literary Digest.

During his lifetime, Burns was one of America's most highly acclaimed marine artists, and one of the few to have experienced being a sailor himself. One critic noted that he looked "as much a sailor as he does an artist." Burns was introduced to marine painting when he accompanied William Bradford on an arctic voyage in 1869. In the early 1870s he became friends with Winslow Homer and went with him on several sketching trips.

Burns and Homer shared the belief that the artist should go directly to nature for inspiration. Burns' experience of the sea is palpable in his paintings. One critic wrote of his marine works: "He painted them vividly and strongly, for he shared the perils of the life and mixed his oils with more than a dash of sea salt." Another critic wrote: "Burns is much more than a painter or illustrator of fishing life. He is the fisherman's friend, a devoted, understanding friend, his interpreter to the world."  More

Campbell Archibald Mellon (British, 1876-1955)

Ship with red sail off Gorleston Pier, Great Yarmouth 

oil on canvas laid to board

25 x 35.5cm (9 13/16 x 14in).

Private Collection

Gorleston-on-Sea, also known colloquially as Gorleston, is a settlement in Norfolk, England, on the south of Great Yarmouth. Situated at the mouth of the River Yare it was a port town at the time of the Domesday Book. The port then became a centre of fishing for herring along with salt pans used for the production of salt to preserve the fish. In Edwardian times the fishing industry rapidly declined and the town's role changed to that of a seaside resort. More

Gorleston is situated on the opposite side of the river Yar, directly south of Great Yarmouth. On the south side there is a cracking pier that offers a good variety of fishing all year round.

Thames barges always have dull red or brown sails, it's supposed to protect the canvass from the effects of sunlight

Campbell Archibald Mellon (British, 1876-1955) was born in Berkshire, and moving to Nottingham in 1903 to work as a travelling salesman, Archibald Campbell Mellon (1876-1955) determined on an artist's life in Norfolk after witnessing World War One horrors and following the migratory example of his painterly hero, John Alfred Arnesby Brown. His nickname of Melancholy Mellon reflected both the muddy palette of his early land-locked pictures and his memories of the trenches.

With Arnesby Brown installed at Haddiscoe, Mellon moved to a house overlooking Gorleston harbour – and for three years became the master's only known student. They were to remain life-long friends and to die within weeks of one another. 

But while Arnesby Brown was the painter-poet of the marshes – rendering the cow every bit as magnificent as close contemporary Alfred Munnings did the horse - Mellon excelled in people-packed scenes on the beach below his studio.

He captured the fleeting glories of the English seaside summer – with ordinary humanity released from school, work, economic slump, war and rationing, for the delights of the day trip or, bliss of bliss, the escape of a summer fortnight in the boarding houses of Great Yarmouth, Gorleston and Lowestoft.

Marvellous Mellon stressed a celebratory brightness by often painting directly into the sun – lighting up his teeming cast beneath a sky possibly bearing the cumulus clouds that might rain on the paddlers and promenaders within minutes. He was the portraitist of passing pleasure. More

Campbell Archibald Mellon, (British, 1876-1955)

Boats on a river 

Oil on canvas

51 x 61cm (20 1/16 x 24in).

Private Collection

Campbell Archibald Mellon (British, 1876-1955) see above

Campbell Archibald Mellon (British, 1876-1955)

Gorleston Beach 

Oil on canvas

51 x 61cm (20 1/16 x 24in)

Private Collection

Gorleston, see above

Campbell Archibald Mellon (British, 1876-1955) see above

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida 

On the Valencian coast (En la costa de Valencia), 1898 

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Private Collection

Valencia was founded as a Roman colony in 138 BC, and called Valentia Edetanorum. In 711 the Muslims occupied the city, introducing their language, religion and customs; they implemented improved irrigation systems and the cultivation of new crops as well, being capital of the Taifa of Valencia. In 1238 the Christian king James I of Aragon reconquered the city and divided the land among the nobles who helped him conquer it. Valencia was the capital of Spain when Joseph I moved there the Court in summer of 1812, and was capital of Spain between 1936 and 1937 during the Second Spanish Republic.

The city is situated on the banks of the Turia, on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula, fronting the Gulf of Valencia on the Mediterranean Sea. Its historic centre is one of the largest in Spain. More

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida (27 February 1863 – 10 August 1923) was a Spanish painter. Sorolla excelled in the painting of portraits, landscapes, and monumental works of social and historical themes. His most typical works are characterized by a dexterous representation of the people and landscape under the sunlight of his native land. More

Montague Dawson RMSA, FRSA (1890–1973) 

A merchant convoy under escort

pencil, watercolour and bodycolour

6 x 7 ½ in. (15.2 x 19 cm.)

Private Collection

Montague Dawson RMSA, FRSA (1890–1973) was a British painter who was renowned as a maritime artist. His most famous paintings depict sailing ships, usually clippers or warships of the 18th and 19th centuries. Montague was the son of a keen yachtsman and the grandson of the marine painter Henry Dawson (1811–1878), born in Chiswick, London. Much of his childhood was spent on Southampton Water where he was able to indulge his interest in the study of ships. For a brief period around 1910 Dawson worked for a commercial art studio in Bedford Row, London, but with the outbreak of the First World War he joined the Royal Navy. Whilst serving with the Navy in Falmouth he met Charles Napier Hemy (1841–1917), who considerably influenced his work. In 1924 Dawson was the official artist for an Expedition to the South Seas by the steam yacht St.George. During the expedition he provided illustrated reports to the Graphic magazine.

After the War, Dawson established himself as a professional marine artist, concentrating on historical subjects and portraits of deep-water sailing ships. During the Second World War, he was employed as a war artist. Dawson exhibited regularly at the Royal Society of Marine Artists, of which he became a member, from 1946 to 1964, and occasionally at the Royal Academy between 1917 and 1936. By the 1930s he was considered one of the greatest living marine artists, whose patrons included two American Presidents, Dwight D Eisenhower and Lyndon B Johnson, as well as the British Royal Family. Also in the 1930s, he moved to Milford-Upon-Sea in Hampshire, living there for many years. Dawson is noted for the strict accuracy in the nautical detail of his paintings which often sell for six figures.

The work of Montague Dawson is represented in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich and the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth. More

Claude Monet 

The Studio Boat, 1874 

 Private Collection

Shortly after Monet moved to Argenteuil, he bought a boat and converted it into a floating studio. He kept it moored near his home and used it to get a vista of the riverbank from the water. As seen here, he also painted it from the bank to study the effects of shadow and reflection at a distance. More

Oscar-Claude Monet (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting.[1][2] The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.

Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. From 1883 Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property, and began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life. More

American School, early 20th century

The U.S.S. Maine under full steam 

oil on board

16 x 24 in

Private Collection

The U.S.S. Maine. Commissioned in 1895, and classified as an armored cruiser, she was built in response to the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo and the increase of naval forces in Latin America. Maine reflected the latest European naval developments. She dispensed with full masts thanks to the increased reliability of steam engines by the time of her construction.

Despite these advances, Maine was out of date by the time she entered service, due to her protracted construction period and changes in the role of ships of her type, naval tactics and technology. The changing role of the armored cruiser from a small, heavily armored substitute for the battleship to a fast, lightly armored commerce raider also hastened her obsolescence. Despite these disadvantages, Maine was seen as an advance in American warship design.

Painting depicting the sinking of the USS Maine

American Museums Washington DC

Maine is best known for her loss in Havana Harbor on the evening of 15 February 1898. Sent to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt against Spain, she exploded suddenly, without warning, and sank quickly, killing nearly three quarters of her crew. The cause and responsibility for her sinking remained unclear after a board of inquiry investigated. Nevertheless, popular opinion in the U.S., fanned by inflammatory articles printed in the "Yellow Press" by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, blamed Spain. The phrase, "remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain", became a rallying cry for action, which came with the Spanish–American War later that year. While the sinking of Maine was not a direct cause for action, it served as a catalyst, accelerating the approach to a diplomatic impasse between the U.S. and Spain. More

American School, early 20th century. In the early 19th century the infrastructure to train artists began to be established in America, and from 1820 the Hudson River School began to produce Romantic landscape painting that was original and matched the huge scale of American landscapes. The American Revolution produced a demand for patriotic art, especially history painting, while other artists recorded the frontier country. 

After 1850 Academic art in the European style flourished, and as richer Americans became very wealthy, the flow of European art, new and old, to the US began; this has continued ever since. Museums began to be opened to display much of this. Developments in modern art in Europe came to America from exhibitions in New York City such as the Armory Show in 1913. After World War II, New York replaced Paris as the center of the art world. Since then many American movements have shaped Modern and Postmodern art. Art in the United States today covers a huge range of styles. More

Édouard Marie Adam (1847-1929)

Taking My Kung by the squadron of Admiral Courbet, c. before 1885

Oil on canvas

119 × 220 cm (46.9 × 86.6 in)

Musée national de la Marine, Paris, France

The Courbet class battleships were the first dreadnoughts built for the French Navy before World War I. The class comprised four ships: Courbet, France, Jean Bart, and Paris. All four ships were deployed to the Mediterranean Sea for the entirety of World War I, spending most of their time escorting French troop convoys from North Africa and covering the Otranto Barrage. An Anglo-French fleet led by Courbet succeeded in sinking the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser Zenta in the Battle of Antivari. Jean Bart was torpedoed in the bow by U-12 on 21 December 1914, but she was able to steam to Malta for repairs.

France sank after striking a rock in Quiberon Bay in 1922. Between the wars the surviving ships were modernised several times, but they were not rebuilt thoroughly enough to prevent them from becoming obsolete in comparison to modern German or Italian battleships. They were relegated to training duties during the 1930s. Courbet and Paris escaped to Portsmouth where they became depot and accommodation ships after the French armistice in 1940. Jean Bart was demilitarised, renamed Océan, and became a school hulk in Toulon. She was captured there on 27 November 1942, although she was not scuttled. She was used for experiments with large shaped charge warheads by the Germans until she was sunk by the Allies in 1944, later broken up in place in 1945. Courbet was scuttled on 9 June 1944 as a breakwater for the Mulberry harbour used during the Battle of Normandy. More

Anatole-Amédée-Prosper Courbet (26 June 1827 – 11 June 1885) was a French admiral who won a series of important land and naval victories during the Tonkin campaign (1883–86) and the Sino-French War (August 1884–April 1885).

Édouard Marie Adam (1847-1929), see below

Bernard Finegan Gribble, R.B.C. (British, 1873-1962)

Departure of the Mayflower 

Oil on canvas

27-1/2 x 62 in

Private Collection

The Mayflower was the ship that transported the first English Separatists, known today as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth to the New World in 1620. There were 102 passengers, and the crew is estimated to have been about 30, but the exact number is unknown. This voyage has become an iconic story in some of the earliest annals of American history, with its story of death and of survival in the harsh New England winter environment. The culmination of the voyage in the signing of the Mayflower Compact was an event which established a rudimentary form of democracy, with each member contributing to the welfare of the community. More

B. F. (Bernard Finegan) Gribble RBC SMA (10 May 1872 - 21 February 1962) was a prolific British marine artist and illustrator. Gribble was born in Chelsea in 1872. He was educated at the College of St Francis Saviour, Bruges, Belgium; South Kensington Art School; and under Albert Toft. He became a member of the Poole and East Dorset Art Society.

Gribble was best known as a painter of historical maritime scenes. In his preparatory sketches of ships, Gribble made notes on the precise structure and names of sails, masts, and rigging. He had studied the movement of water closely, and made highly technical analyses of the construction of rigging and sails. He also paid close attention to the detail of costume. 

Gribble exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy and the Paris Salon. Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of many celebrity owners of Gribble paintings.He purchased a painting showing the arrival of American destroyers at Queenstown in Ireland, during World War I. It hung in the Oval Office of the White House when Roosevelt became United States President in 1933. Roosevelt also purchased Surrender of the German Fleet to the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow. Gribble had been one of the few civilian witnesses to this event in 1918; in his capacity as Official Maritime Painter to the Shipwrights' Company. 

Gribble was in demand as an illustrator, and his work appeared in many leading magazines, including '"The Illustrated London News and '"The Graphic. He illustrated numerous books, his work appearing even on royal postcards and chocolate boxes. More

Claes Claesz. Wou (Amsterdam 1592-1665)

A Dutch threemaster and other shipping in choppy waters, a view of Fort Rammekens, off the coast of Flushing, in the background 

Oil on panel

66.3 x 114.5cm (26 1/8 x 45 1/16in).

Private Collection

Claes Claesz. Wish (ca. 1592 - 1665 ) (also Claes Claesz van Wou. Called) was a Dutch painter of the Baroque period . He mainly painted seascapes. More

Claes Claesz. Wou (1592–1665)

The Battle of Scheveningen, 31 July 1653, c.1653–1665

Oil on panel

53.3 x 96.5 cm

National Maritime Museum

The final battle of the First Dutch War was unfortunate for the Dutch. Not only did they lose at least 15 ships, but their great leader Marten Tromp was killed at the beginning of the action. Having suffered a minimal loss of ships, the English imposed fairly harsh terms on the Dutch at the subsequent peace conference. The left foreground of the painting shows the Dutch flagship ‘Brederode’ commanded by the Admiral Lieutenant-Admiral Marten Tromp. More

Follower of Adam Willaerts (Antwerp 1577-1664 Utrecht)

Shipping in a rough sea; A whaling scene 

Oil on panel

24.7 x 35.2cm (9 3/4 x 13 7/8in)

Private Collection

Adam Willaerts (21 July 1577 – 4 April 1664) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He was born in London to Flemish parents who had fled from Antwerp for religious reasons. By 1585 the family lived in Leiden. From 1597 until his death, Adam lived and worked in Utrecht. He became a member of the Utrecht Guild of St. Luke in 1611 and subsequently became its dean in 1620. His sons Cornelis, Abraham, and Isaac followed in his footsteps.

He was known as a painter of river and canal pieces, coastal landscapes, fish-markets, processions, and genre scenes. He also painted villages and marine battle scenes. More

Adam Willaerts (Antwerp 1577-1664 Utrecht)

Harbour scene, circa 1615

Oil on canvas

Height: 410 mm (16.14 in). Width: 715 mm (28.15 in).

Skokloster Castle, Sweden

This lively anecdotal harbour scene depicts a number of ships and figures engaged in the various tasks of ship maintenance. The ships bear a very early 17th century look with its narrow high stearn, while the colour tone of the water is of that bright blue turquoise trademark style of Willaerts. More

Adam Willaerts (Antwerp 1577-1664 Utrecht), see above

Follower of Adam Willaerts (Antwerp 1577-1664 Utrecht)

Shipping in a rough sea; A whaling scene 

Oil on panel

24.7 x 35.2cm (9 3/4 x 13 7/8in)

Private Collection

Adam Willaerts (Antwerp 1577-1664 Utrecht), see above

Percy A. Sanborn, (American, 1849-1929)

The ship P.R. Hazeltine outward bound

Oil on canvas

24 x 36 in. (60.9 x 91.4 cm.)

Private Collection

Inscribed along the bottom: "Ship P. R. Hazeltine, E.H. Herriman, Master. Built at Belfast, Me, 1876."

On February 18th, 1878, the American fully rigged ship P. R. HAZELTINE, built in 1876 by Carter C. P. & Co., on voyage from New York to San Francisco with general cargo, was wrecked on a submerged rock near Wollaston's Island, Cape Horn. 

All crew and the captain's wife went for the 3 boats, which were separated after some time. Captain Herriman, his wife and 17 of the crew were picked up by the French bark GUSTAVE, heading for Guayaquil. The American bark SAMOA, traveling from Liverpool to San Francisco with a load of coal, saved the third boat. 

The stress of the loss and the failed attempts to raise the ship had taken an irrevocable toll upon the captain, suffering a loss of his mind and he was finally committed to the Augusta Mental Health Institute. He died, insane, in 1893 at age 66. More

Percy A. Sanborn, (American, 1849-1929) was a multi-faceted artist, especially known for his paintings of ship portraits. He was born in Waldo, Maine but lived most of his life in Belfast, Maine, where he took decorating lessons from William Hall and began his career as a sign and theatrical back drop painter. 

To his accomplishments, he added murals, pottery, engraving, and dog and cat portraits. One of his murals is on display at the Ritz Carlton in Boston, and his wood engravings were used by his local newspaper, the "Belfast Republican Journal".

As a violinist he played and conducted with the Belfast Symphonic Orchestra, and also gave lessons to local children.

He was killed in 1929 by a car while crossing a street in Belfast. More

Thomas Bush Hardy, (British, 1842-1897)

Portsmouth Harbour , c. 1893

Watercolor on paper

15-1/4 x 38-1/2 in

Private Collection

The history of the British Navy at Portsmouth dates back 1,200 years to its earliest days under King Alfred the Great in the 860s. This wide natural inlet in the coastline is a flooded river valley protected by a deep narrow entrance on two sides of the dockyard, here and at Gosport, which makes an ideal natural harbour.

Roman and Saxon strongholds were constructed on the northern shore to defend against Viking attacks and to protect trade, but the harbour’s first permanent fort, Portchester Castle, was built after the Norman conquest in 1066.


Portsea Island, at the entrance to Portsmouth harbour, was used as a mustering station for armies during the wars with France, and by the late 12th century a small town had grown on the south-western corner of the Island to accommodate workers and to service troops. In 1194 King Richard I granted this town, known as Portsmouth, a Royal Charter to construct a dockyard, and in 1212 King John protected the new dockyard with a great wall. More

Thomas Bush Hardy (1842, Sheffield – 1897, Maida Vale, London) was a British marine painter and watercolourist. As a young man he travelled in the Netherlands and Italy. In 1884 Hardy was elected a Member of the Royal Society of British Artists. He exhibited with the Society and also at the Royal Academy.

His paintings feature coastal scenes in England and the Netherlands, the French Channel ports and the Venetian Lagoon.

Hardy had nine children. His son Dudley Hardy was a painter, illustrator and poster designer. His daughter Dorothy received an MBE after working as a nurse in the First World War. He died on 15 December 1897 in Maida Vale, London. More

Nicholas Pocock

View of Southampton, taken from the shore towards Netley Abbey, c. 1809

oil on canvas

19 ¼ x 29 ½ in. (48.9 x 74.9 cm.)

Private Collection

Netley Abbey, sometimes referred to as Netley, is a village on the south coast of Hampshire, England. It is situated on the east side of the city of Southampton. It is flanked on the one side by the ruins of Netley Abbey and on the other by the Royal Victoria Country Park, which is the site of the old Royal Victoria Military Hospital; built after the Crimean War, and used extensively from 1863 through to World War II.  More

Nicholas Pocock (2 March 1740 – 9 March 1821) was a British artist known for his many detailed paintings of naval battles during the age of sail. Pocock was born in Bristol in 1740, the son of a seaman. He followed his father's profession and was master of a merchant ship by the age of 26. During his time at sea, he became a skilled artist by making ink and wash sketches of ships and coastal scenes for his log books.

In 1778, Pocock's employer, Richard Champion, became financially insolvent due to the effects of the American Revolutionary War on transatlantic trade. As a result, Pocock gave up the sea and devoted himself to painting. The first of his works were exhibited by the Royal Academy in 1782. Later that year, Pocock was commissioned to produce a series of paintings illustrating George Rodney's victory at the Battle of the Saintes. In 1789, he moved to London, where his reputation and contacts continued to grow. He was a favourite of Samuel Hood and was appointed Marine Painter to King George.

Pocock's naval paintings incorporated extensive research, including interviewing eyewitnesses about weather and wind conditions as well as the positions, condition, and appearance of their ships; and drawing detailed plans of the battle and preliminary sketches of individual ships. 

In addition to his large-scale oil paintings depicting naval battles, Pocock also produced many watercolours of coastal and ship scenes. More

Thomas Buttersworth (5 May 1768 – November 1842) 

British '74' engaging the enemy, with a pilot cutter beyond

Oil on canvas laid down on board

25 x 30 in. (63.5 x 76.2 cm.)

Private Collection

The "seventy-four" was a type of two-decked sailing ship of the line which nominally carried 74 guns. It was developed by the French navy in the 1740s and spread to the British Royal Navy where it was classed as third rate. From here, it spread to the Spanish, Dutch, Danish and Russian navies. The design was considered a good balance between firepower and sailing qualities, but more importantly, it was an appealing ideal for naval administrators and bureaucrats. Seventy-fours became a mainstay of the world's fleets into the early 19th century when they began to be supplanted by new designs and by the introduction of steam powered ironclads.

As a standard type, the seventy-four was only an ideal construction. There was great variation between seventy-fours of different navies. In the period 1750-90, different ships could have displacements of anything at just under 2,000 tonnes up to 3,000 tonnes. The armament could also vary considerably with everything from 24-pounder to long 36-pounder guns and some seventy-four of the Danish navy actually only had 70 guns. More

Thomas Buttersworth (5 May 1768 – November 1842) was an English seaman of the Napoleonic wars period who became a marine painter. He produced works to commission, and was little exhibited during his lifetime. More

Édouard Adam, (1847-1929)

The auxiliary steamer County of Sutherland at sea under steam and sail, c. Date 1878

Oil on canvas

62.2 × 91.4 cm (24.5 × 36 in)

Private Collection

County of Sutherland was a general cargo steamer, built by Connells of Glasgow in 1873. Owned by R. & J. Craig, also of Glasgow, as their first steamship, she was registered at 2,617 tons gross, measured 334 feet in length with a 38 foot beam and was engined by J. & J. Thompson of Glasgow. After only eight years with her original owners however, she was sold to British India Associated Steamers Ltd. (commonly known as the Queensland Royal Mail Line) in 1881 and renamed „Roma“. Placed on her new owners' London-Brisbane service, she maintained this until the beginning of 1894 when she was relegated to Indian coastal duties until broken up in June 1898. More

Édouard Adam, (1847-1929), see below

Attributed to Édouard Adam (French, 1847-1929)

The S.S. Angerton at sea, homeward bound

oil on canvas
23-1/4 x 36 in.

Private Collection

The S.S. Angerton  was a single screw steam vessel, of 1,692 tons registered tonnage, official number 89,529, built at Newcastle in 1884, and belonging to the Port of Newcastle.  

She sailed from Cardiff on the 22nd February, 1899, with a cargo of coal and patent fuel, and a crew of 24 all told. Nothing of importance happened during the voyage from Cardiff until arrival off Alexandria on the 9th day of March, 1899, when, at 3.45 p.m., the vessel struck on the Victorieuse shoal, eventually becoming a total wreck. More

Edouard Adam was the name of both a father and son who painted ship's portraits in the port of Le Havre around the same time. There is much confusion between the two as their works were quite similar. Both Adams were the official painters to the department of marine in Le Havre and were well known and prolific marine artists.

The younger Adam usually signed himself "Adam Fils" and was better known for his steamships painted in the first quarter of this century. Adam the elder, who was more prolific, specialized in sailing vessels, but painted steamers as well. He is often regarded as the French equivalent of the master American ship portraitist, Antonio Jacobsen and is noted for recording the crucial transition period of wind power to steam.

In addition to many fine portraits of sailing vessels, both Adams painted commissions of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique Liners, private yachts and naval ships. A commission from Queen Victoria further attests to their abilities. More

Acknowledgement: Bonhams, 

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others