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

The Mary Powell, often called the Queen of the Hudson, was perhaps the most famous and best loved of nineteenth-century Hudson River steamers. Respected for her "family atmosphere,"² she appeared frequently in period paintings and prints, and later in photographs, books, and articles. Mary Ludlow Powell, for whom the ship was named, was the widow of Thomas Powell, a prominent Newburgh businessman and founder of the Hudson River Day Line. The Mary Powell was built by M. S. Allison (father of Josephine C. Allison, who donated the painting to the Museum) in 1861 for Captain Absalom L. Anderson and his associates for service along the Hudson between New York and Roundout. The vessel, launched the same year this painting was made, served various owners, including the Mary Powell Steamboat Company from 1884 until 1902.³ Between 1861 and 1920 she traveled an estimated 1.15 million miles, carrying about 150,000 passengers annually.

The Mary Powell, a day boat, offered no overnight accommodations but more than compensated for this omission with elegant interior fittings and amenities. Prominent among these was "the forward part of the promenade deck & left unobstructed to permit the full enjoyment of scenery and fresh air," a feature probably designed in response to Captain Anderson's known admiration for the Hudson River vistas.⁴ The vessel also boasted a ladies' saloon on the main deck, another smaller saloon on the promenade deck, and elaborate decor including polished wood paneling in the interior rooms, glass doors for sightseeing, and portraits by Matthew Brady and other local photographers of famous Hudson River Valley personalities (among them General Winfield Scott, Samuel F. B. Morse, John J. Audubon, Washington Irving, Matthew Vassar, Thomas Powell, and Mary Powell herself) transferred onto the glass panels of the clerestory windows.⁵

A guidebook, probably dating from the turn of the century, details the boat, her amenities ("Meals Served at All Hours & Table D'Hote Dinner, 75 Cents"), and her schedule (five and a half hours from the Desbrosses Street Pier to Roundout). It enticed passengers with promises of the route's scenic splendors ("Highlands of the Hudson by daylight") and described the various connections offered along the route: "At Newburgh by electric railroad to Orange Lake and Walden, by ferry and electric cars to Fishkill Landing, Matteawan, Groveville, Glenham and Fishkill Village. At New Hamburgh with stage to Wappingers Falls. At Poughkeepsie with evening trains for the North on the Hudson River Railroad, ferry for Highland, and electric railway for New Paltz, etc. At Roundout with Ulster & Delaware Railroad, for all points in the Catskill Mountains."⁶

Working first with his twin brother, John (1815 -1856), and then alone, self-taught marine painter James Bard portrayed the steamboats and small sailing vessels of New York City, the Hudson River, and Long Island Sound. His precision in recording these vessels, with both architectural elements and exterior mechanical parts executed so accurately that shipbuilders claimed they could build the vessel without blueprints, contrasts oddly with the stiff, out-of-scale figures depicted on the ship's decks and the distant boats and houses in the background.⁷ Most of Bard's boat paintings, some vessels rendered in more than one version, were done on commission for the Fletcher Boat Yards or, as in this instance, for others involved in the development or management of the ships portrayed. In 1975 Andrew Fletcher, last of the Fletcher family to own the boatyard bearing the name, presented to the Museum of the City of New York twenty-one paintings by James Bard of ships the firm had "engined," along with many other marine paintings and lithographs, maps, blueprints, and extensive records from the firm. The engine designs were transferred to the South Street Seaport Museum, while other detailed material went to the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia. Upon Fletcher's death in 1977, six more paintings, including two by Bard, were bequeathed to the Museum. Bard's work endures as an invaluable document of a vital river era in American water-transportation history.

Notes:

1 By inscribing his address on this and many of his other paintings, Bard took advantage of the opportunity to make himself accessible to any in search of similar services.

2 Erik Heyl, Early American Steamers, vol. 4 (Buffalo: Erik Heyl, 1965), p. 185.

3 The Mary Powell Steamboat Company became a subsidiary of the Hudson River Day Line in 1903.

4 Quotation from Heyl, Early American Steamers, p. 184.

5 Ibid. Malcolm Daniel of the Metropolitan Museum Photography Department has suggested that these photographic portraits might have been made as positive contact prints on glass from glass plate negatives, in the same way that lantern slides were made, or they might have been albumen prints mounted between two sheets of glass.

6 Guidebook (New York: Mary Powell Steamboat Company, n.d.).

7 A. J. Peluso, Jr., J. and J. Bard Picture Painters (New York: Hudson River Press, 1977), p. 86.


"Mary Powell," Steamer 1861 James Bard (1815 -1897) Oil on canvas, 30 X 50 Inscribed across bottom: m. s. allison. boat builder. nj. fletcher, harrison engine, builders john e. brown joiner ny. rogers, painter. ny picture drawn & painted by. james. bard. ny 1861 / 162 perry st.¹Gift of Josephine C. Allison, M32.354.
The Mary Powell, often called the Queen of the Hudson, was perhaps the most famous and best loved of nineteenth-century Hudson River steamers. Respected for her "family atmosphere,"² she appeared frequently in period paintings and prints, and later in photographs, books, and articles. Mary Ludlow Powell, for whom the ship was named, was the widow of Thomas Powell, a prominent Newburgh businessman and founder of the Hudson River Day Line. The Mary Powell was built by M. S. Allison (father of Josephine C. Allison, who donated the painting to the Museum) in 1861 for Captain Absalom L. Anderson and his associates for service along the Hudson between New York and Roundout. The vessel, launched the same year this painting was made, served various owners, including the Mary Powell Steamboat Company from 1884 until 1902.³ Between 1861 and 1920 she traveled an estimated 1.15 million miles, carrying about 150,000 passengers annually. The Mary Powell, a day boat, offered no overnight accommodations but more than compensated for this omission with elegant interior fittings and amenities. Prominent among these was "the forward part of the promenade deck & left unobstructed to permit the full enjoyment of scenery and fresh air," a feature probably designed in response to Captain Anderson's known admiration for the Hudson River vistas.⁴ The vessel also boasted a ladies' saloon on the main deck, another smaller saloon on the promenade deck, and elaborate decor including polished wood paneling in the interior rooms, glass doors for sightseeing, and portraits by Matthew Brady and other local photographers of famous Hudson River Valley personalities (among them General Winfield Scott, Samuel F. B. Morse, John J. Audubon, Washington Irving, Matthew Vassar, Thomas Powell, and Mary Powell herself) transferred onto the glass panels of the clerestory windows.⁵ A guidebook, probably dating from the turn of the century, details the boat, her amenities ("Meals Served at All Hours & Table D'Hote Dinner, 75 Cents"), and her schedule (five and a half hours from the Desbrosses Street Pier to Roundout). It enticed passengers with promises of the route's scenic splendors ("Highlands of the Hudson by daylight") and described the various connections offered along the route: "At Newburgh by electric railroad to Orange Lake and Walden, by ferry and electric cars to Fishkill Landing, Matteawan, Groveville, Glenham and Fishkill Village. At New Hamburgh with stage to Wappingers Falls. At Poughkeepsie with evening trains for the North on the Hudson River Railroad, ferry for Highland, and electric railway for New Paltz, etc. At Roundout with Ulster & Delaware Railroad, for all points in the Catskill Mountains."⁶ Working first with his twin brother, John (1815 -1856), and then alone, self-taught marine painter James Bard portrayed the steamboats and small sailing vessels of New York City, the Hudson River, and Long Island Sound. His precision in recording these vessels, with both architectural elements and exterior mechanical parts executed so accurately that shipbuilders claimed they could build the vessel without blueprints, contrasts oddly with the stiff, out-of-scale figures depicted on the ship's decks and the distant boats and houses in the background.⁷ Most of Bard's boat paintings, some vessels rendered in more than one version, were done on commission for the Fletcher Boat Yards or, as in this instance, for others involved in the development or management of the ships portrayed. In 1975 Andrew Fletcher, last of the Fletcher family to own the boatyard bearing the name, presented to the Museum of the City of New York twenty-one paintings by James Bard of ships the firm had "engined," along with many other marine paintings and lithographs, maps, blueprints, and extensive records from the firm. The engine designs were transferred to the South Street Seaport Museum, while other detailed material went to the Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia. Upon Fletcher's death in 1977, six more paintings, including two by Bard, were bequeathed to the Museum. Bard's work endures as an invaluable document of a vital river era in American water-transportation history. Notes: 1 By inscribing his address on this and many of his other paintings, Bard took advantage of the opportunity to make himself accessible to any in search of similar services. 2 Erik Heyl, Early American Steamers, vol. 4 (Buffalo: Erik Heyl, 1965), p. 185. 3 The Mary Powell Steamboat Company became a subsidiary of the Hudson River Day Line in 1903. 4 Quotation from Heyl, Early American Steamers, p. 184. 5 Ibid. Malcolm Daniel of the Metropolitan Museum Photography Department has suggested that these photographic portraits might have been made as positive contact prints on glass from glass plate negatives, in the same way that lantern slides were made, or they might have been albumen prints mounted between two sheets of glass. 6 Guidebook (New York: Mary Powell Steamboat Company, n.d.). 7 A. J. Peluso, Jr., J. and J. Bard Picture Painters (New York: Hudson River Press, 1977), p. 86.