Large Oil on Canvas "Steamship Horatio Hall Coming Up the East River at an Angle" Signed and Dated "Antonio Jacobsen Signed and Dated Antonio Jacobsen 1898 West Hoboken"
InformationLarge oil on canvas titled "Steamship Horatio Hall Coming Up the East River at an Angle" Signed and Antonio Jacobsen 1898 West Hoboken". The painting depicts The passenger stem ship “Horatio Hall going up the Est River of new York on her Route to Portland Maine. The vessel’s name appears on the bow and on a large red flag flying from the front mast. The American merchant flag flies from the bow the hose flag from the rear mast and the American flag of the stern. The vessel is painted in excellent detail and the passengers are shown scattered around the various decks. The “Horatio Hall” is sailing parallel to the shore which show the various piers and dock along the east side of Manhattan. The building of the city can be seen behind the shore side docks. Just behind the bow and to the right is a building titled “Maine S.S. Company, Portland Line” with an American flag mounted on the roof. Behind the ship is a detailed view of the east side of the Brooklyn Bridge which was completed in 1883. Near the bridge are two steam tugs and a ferry. Down from the bridge along the shore is a second Steam ship station flying an American flag. The water is very calm with gentle ripples. The sky is bright blue with puffy clouds.
The painting is almost six feet in length and is amongst Jacobson’s largest canvases. He painted very few pictures this size and they often represented his most important commissions which he painted with his finest detail and complex composition. Typical Jacobson paintings were 22 x 36 inches and depicted a single vessel at sea shown in a port or starboard simple profile. Some pictures are 50" inches wide and fewer are 60". This is the only 72" wide painting we have examined.
Reference 1: “Antonio Jacobsen – The Checklist, Paintings, and sketches by Antonio N.G. Jacobsen 1850 – 1921. Compiled by Harold S. Sniffen Curator Emeritus, The Mariners Museum Newport News Virginia, Published by the Smith Gallery 1984 New York. Pages 149 – 151. The book details ten Jacobsen paintings of the “Horatio Hall” ranging in date from 1898 to 1916. All the painting’s dimensions are provided and most of them were 24 x 42 inches. The largest, which measures 28 x 48 belongs to the Maine Historical Society and a few measures 22 x36. Jacobsen also made a sketch of the ship in 1908. A 24 x 42 painting is in the collection of the Henry Ford Museum, 22 x 36 painting is at the Mariners Museum as is the sketch. The Peabody Essex Museum has a painting created in 1916 which measures 20 x 36. The painting above is unrecorded and was unknow till the family in Pennsylvania that owed it sold it in 2023.
Reference 2: Maine Memory Network states that the “Horatio Hall” was based out of Portland Maine. She was built in Pennsylvania between 1897-1898. Her intended use was built to provide passenger service between Portland and New York, and she also hauled freight. The steel hulled vessel was 296 feet in length, 46 feet in beam and 17-foot draft, with a gross tonnage of 3,167, and could maintain 17 knots. Her two upper decks held 135 passenger staterooms, and the ship ordinarily carried 55 crew. On March 10th, 1909, bound from Portland with 400 tons of cargo and a compliment of about 40crcrew and 5 passengers, when she encountered dense fog off Cape cod. Entering Pollack Rip Channel, the “Horatio Hall” was rammed by the freighter, “H.F. Dimock”, whose bow sliced 15 – 20 feet into the Hall’s port side. The captain of the Dimock kept the 2 vessels together long enough to evacuate most of the Hal’s passengers and crew. In the process pushing the Hall into shallower water where it sank on the shoals 30 minutes later. Rescue surf boats from the Orleans Life saving Station came to the aid of the Dimock, transferring the passengers and crew before the freighter was beached to prevent sinking- no lives were lost on either vessel. The “Horatio Hall” was declared a total loss and was blown up as a menace to navigation. The “H.F. Dimock was repaired and towed back to port, where authorities considered declaring the freighter itself a menace to navigation, as the Dimock had rammed and sunk another vessel near the same spot, some 16 years earlier.
Dimensions of Painting: Height 35 ½, Width 71, Inches
Dimensions of Frame:
Condition: The painting was restored about 20 years ago. It was wax lined and has a few tear repairs in the sky. There is scattered in paint throughout the canvas but only some in paint to the steam stack and some of the fencing.
1898
