Painted after a Mediterranean encounter from direct information provided by English officers who were present, the Dutch Master Willem van de Velde Jr. composed a view of naval battle straight from the Algiers coast. Barbary ships and armed sailors assault a vessel of the British Admiralty, with the “haze of battle” obscuring some of the heroic and desperate actions of participants.

One of the exceptionally rare original works of this specific nautical combat, it became a popular 16th and 17th Century subject with his British patrons, to the point were van de Velde painted this scene more than once, with the earliest large original painting residing in the collection of the Earl of Midleton, England. This is the known second such painting, attributed directly to the artist’s studio, with its significant provenance. It is interesting that in this period the artist strove to show humanity on both sides of the naval battle, as men in dire situations attempt to assist each other, amid the chaos and fire.

Barbary corsairs preyed upon foreign ships throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, right up to the successful British assault on Algiers by Lord Exmouth’s squadron in August, 1816. Internal European conflicts kept the Barbary pirates from fully facing a reprisal until after Napoleon’s downfall. Painted for members of the aristocracy, Willem van de Velde the Younger’s artistic efforts echo through the finest collections and museums still today.

A stalwart American ship clearing the Delaware headed for Honolulu with a load of coal, this broadside ship portrait by Alexander Charles Stuart is of the Ship GATHERER. In her maiden year of service, the Bath, Maine-built Downeaster went to New Orleans with hay, took a load of cotton from there to Liverpool, and crossed to collect the coal in Philadelphia before heading to Hawaii. She’d make 8 Cape Horn voyages, averaging about 129 days, a profitable and fast sailing Downeaster, and yet still record one of the bloodiest voyages in merchant maritime history.

In this portrait, A.C. Stuart shows the large wooden vessel as built by Albert Hathorn, a 1,509 ton Downeaster especially constructed for the Cape Horn Trade. Measuring 208’1” x 40’2” x 24’3”, she’d sell to Jacob Jensen at San Francisco in 1888, serve 17 years on the Pacific rigged as a bark, and then transfer to New York interests to carry lumber from Puget Sound to New York in 1905, and become a towed barge, eventually lost off the coast of Virginia in 1909 with 2,400 tons of coal.

While her first captains, Joseph and George Thompson, earned GATHERER a good reputation as a fast sailer especially for such a large square-rigger, reaching 15½ knots and 350 miles a day from Honolulu back to the Columbia River in 1874, a voyage from Antwerp to Wilmington, California in 1881 would darken her name. Under Captain John Sparks and Chief Mate Charlie Watts the ship earned an unsavory reputation of “Hell Ship” and whispered title of “The Bloody Gatherer”, and eventually Watts six years in Folsom Prison for cruelty on the high seas. While the dark names stuck, she proved to be far more of a success than this one tragic voyage. Stuart has captured her early glory.

A dynamic painted view of a conflict at sea between America and Great Britain over national rights and Imperial ambitions, the first frigate of the United States, aptly named UNITED STATES, de-masts the British MACEDONIAN on the way to capturing the valuable ship as a war prize on Oct. 25, 1812. Grant has imbued the scene with the dramatic impact and an aesthetically strong interpretation of the important naval battle, nailing the historic fact of the U.S. Frigate’s complete defeat of King George III’s Ship off the coast of Africa.

Slightly more than two months after the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION won the first naval engagement of the war, the frigate UNITED STATES of 44-guns fell in with H.M.S. MACEDONIAN of 38-guns. The British captain, John Carden, had been Captain Stephen Decatur’s dinner guest in January, and had jokingly bet a “beaver hat” on an outcome between their ships. Little did either know that nine months later Decatur would command his 24-pounders to fire on his friend. American marksmanship and range proved superior, and UNITED STATES would strike, bear-away slightly, reload, and strike again. In a two-hour engagement, MACEDONIAN’s masts were shot down and topped off. It is recorded that more than 100 rounds hit the Brits ‘between wind and wave’.

The two ships would take five-weeks to sail to New York, where MACEDONIAN would be purchased by the American government and become an fighting navy asset for years. Her Alexander the Great figurehead and four 18-pounders are still on display at Annapolis. Grant has put together a powerful rendering of the conflict in an impressionistic, fluid portrayal.

A beauty of a painting showing a slice of the empirical might of the British Royal Navy, two of her stalwart ships are under sail in the Bay of Naples. This crisp detailed narrative art work by Mediterranean artist Tomaso de Simone is composed with a broadside view of a fighting frigate, flying a British Royal Navy ensign.

The headland of Mount Vesuvius and the Florentine architecture of Naples with its environs are visible beyond another larger, multiple decked British warship. Atop the most elevated hill is the large ancient acropolis of Neapolis, where the “Istituto Universitario Suor Orsola Benincasa”, a university that traces it origin to an agreement between the King of Sicily and the Holy Roman Empire in 1224, settled in the 20th Century.

Sharp lined, full sails moving her at a good clip, the frigate type is identified by the single deck of full-sized (at least 24 pounders, possibly up to 34 pounders) cannon ports in a horizontal line. Lanteen rigs of Mediterranean sailing vessels are noticeable, and the high clouded sky hold fumes from the iconic volcano of the Mediterranean shore. Exceptionally detailed, De Simone’s work is an outstanding historic view of European context and British naval content.

A striking portrait of a very large American sidewheel paddle steamer on her maiden voyage from New York to Mobile, Alabama, and on from there to Havana, Cuba. The BLACK WARRIOR began the voyage in her home port of New York City. Bard has undoubtedly painted her in concert with either her listed builder, William Collyer of New York, whose name is included by the artist on the canvas, or the owners, Livingston, Crocheron & Co. Launched in 1852, the line soon moved its southern base to New Orleans, establishing a foothold in a region soon in direct competition with the Vanderbilt and Morgan families.

Her deep luster coloration is expertly portrayed by Bard. He has used draftmanship in composing the full outline of the steam/sail transition vessel, and then worked in painstaking detail to apply every touch of oil, down to the pointillist-style of the water’s wake against the hull and the top of the ocean swells. The brooding sky colors compliment the impressive heavy sense of the 1556-ton steam/sail paddlewheeler, with the flags brightly displayed before the clouded sky. Several gentlemen sailors are visible on deck, attending to the coastwise Atlantic journey. With the placement of the American Government’s streaming pennant at the main mast top, undoubtably this included mail to the South, and possibly return news of the recent Gold Boom in California. She would stay on this route until a snow squall off Rockaway, Long Island put her aground on Feb. 20, 1859.

There were very few American artists who focused upon marine subjects during this seminal period of American history, and even fewer outside the northeast coast. This factor adds considerably to the interest and value of this particular work, a rare document of the era and showing a unique locale. This oil on canvas depicts a British vessel leaving what we believe to be a port in the American south, very likely the port of New Orleans itself. With a view of the settlement beyond, a stone battlement guards the harbor mouth while a full-rigged ship sits at anchor, awaiting its next passage.