In this full port beam view, John Hughes presents a fine portrait of the American full rigged ship M.P. GRACE approaching Liverpool with South Stack, Angelesey coming up just under her bowsprit. Note top-hatted Captain Robert Wilbur, the vessel's first master, on deck reading signals from the Holyhead Signal Station through his long glass.

Hughes' detailed draftsmanship portrays the wooden hulled GRACE, built by Chapman & Flint of Bath, Maine in 1875 with all sail set, striving for a record run to Liverpool. Nice detail is shown in the deck structures and layout and the elegant scrollwork on her bows.

The 1,928.13 gross-ton M.P. GRACE was 229.9 feet in length with a beam of 42.1 feet and a draught of 19.7 feet. Her first home port was New York. In 1898 she became a salmon packer with the San Francisco fleet of George W. Hume & Co. where she worked steadily until 1906.

This excellent narrative portrait by Antoine Roux, Jr. Shows a rare scene of the merchant brig Le Theodore, hailing from the channel port of Saint Malo in Northwestern France, heaving to and hoisting a white flag of surrender under the guns of an independent privateer while voyaging off the Canary Islands.

The work is a fine portrait of Le Theodore with the extra dimension of the corsair adding an element of drama to the painting. Privateers operated throughout the Mediterranean and along the Western coast of Africa during the period this work was completed. Roux has portrayed both vessels quite well with deck details on the brig showing the captain observing the corsair through his long glass while the ship's crew anxiously looks on.

Roux's knowledge of ship rig and sail handling emerges here with his accurate depiction of the brig's spanker being doused with a system of brails, the top gallant sails are being clewed up and the jib is coming down as the vessel prepares to be boarded. Roux watercolors such as this are considered strong historical references to accurate ship type and detail.

This beautifully detailed and proportioned ship portrait is the earliest known surviving work by the artist, but undoubtedly, it is far from the first he painted. It has such professional styling and bearing the commander’s name, B. Pittman and as such was almost assuredly a direct commission. The only other known work held in a public collection compares favorably - Bark ELLEN Passing Elsinore Castle - is in the Collection of the Peabody Essex Museum of Salem. Undoubtably others exist in private European and American collections. The Danish Castle made famous in Shakespeare’s Macbeth is unmistakable as the headland setting.

MOSCOW was built by the Portland, Maine yard of David Spear and Son, circa 1830. She originally was rigged as a full ship and weighed 300 tons. Her configuration here is after conversion to a bark, with her identity not only twice written by the artist, but shown in the Boston Flag Code high on the mizzen mast, a pre-cursor to the developing International Merchant Flag Codes. MOSCOW served as an Atlantic Packet for a succession of Boston owners, as is most remembered under the command of Captain William Dane Phelps, when he sailed her to San Francisco and came home to much fanfare in 1849 with one of the first barrels of California gold.

With a traditional folk art look, this portrait of the Maine-built schooner MADAWASKA MAID shows the strong hull lines and balanced sail plan that made Downeast schooners the backbone of American coastal trade in the 19th century. The long clipper bow and extended bowsprit give extra length forward to accommodate the formidable fore-triangle of jumbo, jib and jib-topsail.

MADAWASKA MAID was built on the west bank of the Kennebec River at the town of Phippsburg just south of the city of Bath, Maine. Launched in 1832 at the yard of William Reed she was a 130-ton coaster, 78 feet long with a 23 foot beam and drawing just over 8 feet of water. She is a typical model of the hundreds of Maine coastal schooners that linked east coast ports throughout the 19th century.

In this view the schooner prominently wears her name pennant at the main truck and a small red pennant on her foremast. The American merchant ensign flies from her gaff-peak. The schooner is shown offshore with a large flotilla of other coastal shipping seen on the horizon.

Period pirate action against an American ship is an extremely rare subject. Combined with the Caribbean account within this work and it is one of the outstanding snippets of history we have come across in recent years. With present muzzle flashes and views of the battles at sea and shore, it is clear that Pellegrin either was present or heard the story directly from a participant. What is less clear is what purpose the American, a 212-ton brig which was built in Steubens, Maine in 1833, had in these waters.

The Dominican Republic, as the Trinitarians, Had declared their independence in february from Haitian rule, which had cast off Spanish rule 17 years arlier. Taking the Haitian Flag and adding the white cross, they won the Battle of Azua on March 19, 1844. It is most likely that the American ship ended up in the wrong place at this time a month later, and as a interloper in the area of hostilities, was set upon as a prize. The nine men and their record of valor and victory in repelling the Dominicans is recorded in the inscription personally by the artist.

It is of interest to note that American interest in the region continued well through the century and beyond, with the possibility of annexation of the entire Isle of Hispaniola in the 1870s. This Greater Antilles Island is west of Puerto Rico, beyond Mona Passage, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Today the Dominican Republic is the second largest nation in the Caribbean, sharing the island with the Republic of Haiti.

More information to follow.