A quality work of art, capturing a leisurely day sail by one of the 19th Century’s elite American schooner yachts, AGNES of the Atlantic Yacht Club, under the command of her owner, Commodore Latham Avery Fish. AGNES was one of the best known Class B racing schooners throughout the eastern seaports, a common presence for years at regattas in the 1870s and 1880s, often accompanied by her club mates, the schooner yachts PEERLESS and TRITON.

Built in 1871 by Cornelius & Richard Poillon in their Greenpoint, Brooklyn hometown yard, she was designed by William Townsend, most famous as the designer of the grand Schooner SAPPHO. The smaller AGNES measured 53'11" at the waterline, 16'9" Beam and 6' draft. She had a solid performance record as the flagship of the Atlantic Yacht Club, and afterward sold to J. Norton Winslow when Commodore Fish upgraded to the massive schooner GREYLING in 1883.

Buttersworth frequently accepted direct commissions from yachtsmen, as is likely the case here. The sharp details and gracefully drawn lines of the racing schooner AGNES are well represented, as is her yacht club pennant, personal ‘A’ signal and crisp American ensign on display in the soft breeze. Just enough sunlight is shown breaking through the heavy coastal atmosphere, stylizing the sky as Buttersworth’s own. AGNES lasted more than 25 years before selling to foreign owners.

Matched in a challenge for the prestigious America’s Cup, MISCHIEF of the Atlantic Yacht Club of Brooklyn, New York, and representing the New York Yacht Club, is featured in this epic painting and race. This America’s Cup race was the first to feature two sloops in battle, with the Royal Canadian Yacht Club’s representative, ATALANTA, running parallel immediately alongside the defender.

Franklyn Bassford’s portrayal is a quality capture of this important race. The scope of the drama, with the N.Y.Y.C. yacht squadron and others running in their wake and the spectators waving from the named tug boat, is further highlighted with the up-close action of the men on deck and one adventurous soul half way up MISCHIEF’s mast. The Atlantic Yacht Club burgee is flown, with national ensigns in view. The tug flies a neutral pilot jack, but undoubtedly is loaded with American yacht racing fans.

Under full sail, the yachts contest the outside Club course beyond the Narrows. Bassford, an elusive but popular artist in his time, has created a masterful work of the spirit and facts of the race. MISCHIEF, an iron sloop designed by A. Cary Smith, was an early “compromise” that borrowed some of the best features of English cutters and blended them with American speed. She handedly defeated ATALANTA, but was challenged in the contests by American Sloop GRACIE, that started 10 minutes behind the racers but came close to finishing first in both races on Nov. 9th & 10th, 1881.

Fought 80 miles west of Denmark on May 31, 1916, the Battle of Jutland was the largest challenge for supremacy of the seas since the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Capturing a pivotal moment of the World War I naval battle, Montague Dawson paints the German High Seas Fleet, under command of Admiral Reinhard Scheer, perform a daring and untested full speed turn in unison to escape the range of the British Grand Fleet under command of Admiral Sir John Jellicoe on the horizon.

The first salvos saw the Germans destroy five British ships of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty’s scouting command in less than a minute, but the encounter had drawn the German Fleet in range of the Grand Fleet. To escape the trap, Scheer ordered the German column to all turn at once, rather than executing a traditional corpen, thus avoiding each having to turn in succession and face annihilation.

Both sides claimed victory, and with 250 ships combined, the British suffered 6,945 casualties and the Germans 2,921 in the 30-minute engagement. The German Fleet was forced to retreat to their base and never again engage the Royal Navy. Dawson captures the moment’s intensity, with artillery smoke and intentional smoke-screens, the exploding rounds landing amongst the warships, and the overhead perspective illuminating the enormity of the ocean and numerous ships in this conflict. An epic painting of the greatest naval battle of modern times.

Under a high gray English sky, a ray of light catches the American Racing Schooner COLUMBIA in this scene by James E. Buttersworth, competing in the waters of the artist’s land of birth. COLUMBIA, owned by Franklin Osgood, is heeled over showing her deck and active crew, the slick schooner in racing trim with the yachting national ensign and his private signal on display.

Franklin Osgood, at the time Rear Commodore of the New York Yacht Club, and part of the successful group of yachtsmen who triumphed in the second defense of the America’s Cup in 1871 against the English challenge of LIVONIA, sailed for England in 1875 and competed in match yacht racing with his champion schooner COLUMBIA. His yacht was built by Joseph B. Vandeuson at his 16th Street, East River, New York yard in 1871. Osgood was following in his older brother George’s spirit, who had sailed his Vandeusen-built FLEETWING to England to race in 1871 and 1872. FLEETWING had previous been part of the regatta that defended the first challenge for the America’s Cup.

Shown with the reflective light creating strong watery illusions, two English cutters give chase in the race, while a rowed boat is nicely displayed with a man standing watch in the bow, two oarsmen, and at least one passenger in a red cloak. On the headland before them several buildings including a castle battlement, and is very near Portsmouth in the south of England, across from the prominent yacht racing courses of the Isle of Wight. Buttersworth would have painted this as a commemorative moment of a great American racing yacht’s season overseas.

A painted portrait of the Racing Yacht MAYFLOWER, directly from the year of her most glorious campaign for owner General Charles J. Paine in the 1886 Defense of the America’s Cup. Having defeated .PRISCILLA and the New York Club’s other potential defenders in the August trials, MAYFLOWER met Lieut. William Henn’s GALATEA, the first steel challenger for the Cup, on Sept. 7. In light airs, MAYFLOWER handedly defeated the Royal Northern Yacht Club of Scotland’s challenger, both on the inside and outside New York courses.

A sensation of movement is achieved by the artist, the racing cutter is raked back at speed under a sky brightening with the rising marine layer, while the water is very active. Paine’s private signal flies high, and his royal blue coated presence is noticeable amongst the crew dressed in whites. Two schooners and another racing cutter share the water off New York.

Built in 1886 by George Lawley’s City Point Yard in Boston from the design of Edward Burgess, MAYFLOWER followed their successful syndicate project led by Paine and J. Malcolm Forbes with PURITAN, the defender of the 1885 challenge. They both possessed deeper hulls with lead ballast on the outside, overhanging sterns and modified cutter rigs, greatly changing yacht design to a far more capable boat in all weather. MAYFLOWER was 100' with a 85½’ waterline, 23½’ beam and a 9'9" draft that extended down 20' with the centerboard. She was not successful in her first matches, but after some adaptations, by August she was unbeatable, winning not only the trials and the Cup, but every match she raced the rest of the year. Paine most likely directly commissioned this great portrait in her honor and lasting memory.

This is an extremely well done narrative ship portrait by one of the more elusive American marine painters, Joseph B. Smith. The schooner AURELIA P. HOWE, named after the daughter of a Manhattan business family, launched in 1845 out of Baltimore, Maryland and worked in the Chesapeake and Atlantic coastwise trade. Shown in her early glory, the schooner would be part of a legal battle in 1858, disappearing from the news to surface for Civil War charter service.

The painting is a well performed composition, with the primary subject crisply detailed and proudly showing her tell-tale flags, the artistic hand of Smith clearly evident. The charm of the setting, we believe off the New York coast, includes a top-sail schooner, other fore-and-aft rigs, a white-hulled, walking-beam sidewheel steamer, and two very animated men making the most of the day fishing, a touch which is a very unusual addition to a ship portrait. The schooner’s crew is on deck, and there’s a nice sense of motion to the ship in the water. Another near identical Smith painting of the schooner is known, closer to a shore without most of the supporting cast. Our painting has a New York artist supply label verso from 1835-1865.

The schooner would be in a New York Times brief in 1858, when Andrew F. Higgins acquires partial title to it in settlement of an account of Master William Tilby. Later, in 1863, soldiers of Company C, the Fifty-First Volunteer Regiment of Massachuset would use it for transport out of Baltimore during the Civil War, recording their voyages in several published letters. Miss Aurelia Perry Howe married mariner Moses Kelley Glines, and their son George would be born in Baltimore in 1849, quite possibly while his parents or grandparents owned the merchant schooner.