Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

In response to the demands for rapid passage to California after the discovery of gold in 1848, 1853 was a peak year for the construction of United States clipper ships, which were designed for speed. The Sweepstakes was one of forty-eight built that year and the last to be built by the renowned Westervelt shipyard. The economic depression of 1857 reduced the demand for ships and hastened the demise of New York's wooden ship-building industry.

The diary of Robert Underhill, which records his 1856 travels on the Sweepstakes, reveals that Jacob Westervelt, whose sons Daniel and Aaron owned the yard that built the ship, was also traveling on this voyage to San Francisco and the Orient.¹ Underhill's entries make clear that the older Westervelt, retired from active participation in his family's business, recognized the economic situation facing the port of New York and was seeking other possible venues for the family business.

The Sweepstakes, depicted here in New York Harbor, was owned by Chambers and Heiser, and for her first four voyages she sailed under the command of Captain George E. Lane, a distant cousin of the artist.²

Though black-hulled like other clippers, she bore a stripe of gold found on only a few others and was distinguished for "her graceful model and trim rigging & elegant cabins & [and] & the comfortable and airy quarters provided for the crew, replacing the old forecastle, whose middle-passage horrors have tasked the pens of our nautical writers."³ Sweepstakes gained celebrity for her record-breaking seventy-four-day run from New York to Bombay in 1857.

Fitz Hugh Lane was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and probably taught himself to paint before going to work in 1832 as a lithographer, first in Gloucester and then in Boston. By 1841, having returned to Gloucester, he began exhibiting his paintings in Boston and New York, and by 1850 he had developed his distinctive and innovative style of luministic marine paintings, strongly influenced by the English marine painter Robert Salmon.⁴ Lane's visits to New York provided him with a way to earn money by filling commissions from ship owners, builders and captains with standard, though highly competent, portraits of their vessels. The peculiar signature on this painting is not unique.⁵ Lane did not sign every painting. His executor and close friend Joseph L. Stevens signed some after his death, and several variations of his signature can be found.⁶

Notes:

1 Robert Underhill's journal is in the Manuscript Department, New-York Historical Society.

2 A family tree, developed by former Paintings Department intern Angela Blake from her extensive research at the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, shows the family connection between artist and seaman and suggests that Theodore E. Blake, who donated the painting to the Museum, was a collateral descendant of the captain's. George Lane may have commissioned the painting, as such commissions were common among sea captains at that period.

3 Harper's New Monthly Magazine, quoted in Helen La Grange, Clipper Ships of America and Great Britain, 1833 -1869 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1936), p. 201.

4 See "Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804 -1865," in John Caldwell and Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994), vol. 1, p. 492, describing Lane's "refined colorism, subtle composition, and beautifully painted surface."

5 The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns The Golden State Entering New York Harbor, which bears the signature "Fitz Henry Lane" on the reverse of the canvas.

6 John Wilmerding, Sarofim Professor of American Art at Princeton University and author of American Marine Painting (New York: Abrams, 1987), examined the painting in June 1993 and believes that it is by Fitz Hugh Lane with "no additional hands at work." He felt that Stevens or someone else might have been involved in the signature "Fitz Henry Lane."


Clipper Ship "Sweepstakes" 1853 Fitz Hugh Lane (1804 -1865) Oil on canvas, 26 X 48 1/2 Signed lower right: Fitz Henry [sic] Lane / Gloucester, Mass / 1853 Bequest of Theodore E. Blake, M50.5
In response to the demands for rapid passage to California after the discovery of gold in 1848, 1853 was a peak year for the construction of United States clipper ships, which were designed for speed. The Sweepstakes was one of forty-eight built that year and the last to be built by the renowned Westervelt shipyard. The economic depression of 1857 reduced the demand for ships and hastened the demise of New York's wooden ship-building industry. The diary of Robert Underhill, which records his 1856 travels on the Sweepstakes, reveals that Jacob Westervelt, whose sons Daniel and Aaron owned the yard that built the ship, was also traveling on this voyage to San Francisco and the Orient.¹ Underhill's entries make clear that the older Westervelt, retired from active participation in his family's business, recognized the economic situation facing the port of New York and was seeking other possible venues for the family business. The Sweepstakes, depicted here in New York Harbor, was owned by Chambers and Heiser, and for her first four voyages she sailed under the command of Captain George E. Lane, a distant cousin of the artist.² Though black-hulled like other clippers, she bore a stripe of gold found on only a few others and was distinguished for "her graceful model and trim rigging & elegant cabins & [and] & the comfortable and airy quarters provided for the crew, replacing the old forecastle, whose middle-passage horrors have tasked the pens of our nautical writers."³ Sweepstakes gained celebrity for her record-breaking seventy-four-day run from New York to Bombay in 1857. Fitz Hugh Lane was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and probably taught himself to paint before going to work in 1832 as a lithographer, first in Gloucester and then in Boston. By 1841, having returned to Gloucester, he began exhibiting his paintings in Boston and New York, and by 1850 he had developed his distinctive and innovative style of luministic marine paintings, strongly influenced by the English marine painter Robert Salmon.⁴ Lane's visits to New York provided him with a way to earn money by filling commissions from ship owners, builders and captains with standard, though highly competent, portraits of their vessels. The peculiar signature on this painting is not unique.⁵ Lane did not sign every painting. His executor and close friend Joseph L. Stevens signed some after his death, and several variations of his signature can be found.⁶ Notes: 1 Robert Underhill's journal is in the Manuscript Department, New-York Historical Society. 2 A family tree, developed by former Paintings Department intern Angela Blake from her extensive research at the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society, shows the family connection between artist and seaman and suggests that Theodore E. Blake, who donated the painting to the Museum, was a collateral descendant of the captain's. George Lane may have commissioned the painting, as such commissions were common among sea captains at that period. 3 Harper's New Monthly Magazine, quoted in Helen La Grange, Clipper Ships of America and Great Britain, 1833 -1869 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1936), p. 201. 4 See "Fitz Hugh Lane, 1804 -1865," in John Caldwell and Oswaldo Rodriguez Roque, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994), vol. 1, p. 492, describing Lane's "refined colorism, subtle composition, and beautifully painted surface." 5 The Metropolitan Museum of Art owns The Golden State Entering New York Harbor, which bears the signature "Fitz Henry Lane" on the reverse of the canvas. 6 John Wilmerding, Sarofim Professor of American Art at Princeton University and author of American Marine Painting (New York: Abrams, 1987), examined the painting in June 1993 and believes that it is by Fitz Hugh Lane with "no additional hands at work." He felt that Stevens or someone else might have been involved in the signature "Fitz Henry Lane."