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To judge from surviving works, Fitz Henry Lane had little inclination to imitate the styles or to copy the works of other artists. A very small number of surviving paintings show aspects of technique or composition that follow his contemporaries, and even fewer can be said to have been close copies of their work. His depiction of The Yacht "Northern Light" in Boston Harbor, 1845 (inv. 268) is reputed to be based on a sketch by Salmon, while his depiction of the frigate “President” is unusual in Lane's oeuvre. Ann Prentice Wagner has documented the way in which Lane could have been looking to American accounts and prints of the war for inspiration. (1)
However, this painting is strikingly similar in style to watercolors by members of the Roux family of Marseilles or a similar scene executed in oil in the Roux style. The translucence of the water, the accuracy and degree of detail in the ships, and the correctness of crew activity— all are captured by Lane in the Roux styles of narrative and depiction. Although the Roux family worked in Marseille, their works often were purchased and brought back to New England by American ship captains and sailors. Salem vessels, in particular, are represented frequently by the Roux family. (2)
The painting’s narrative is a running battle between the American frigate “President” and three British warships as the American attempted to reach open ocean after leaving New York Harbor and grounding on a sandbar with serious damage to the hull bottom. Overtaken by the British frigate “Endymion,” the “President” engaged in a running battle which resulted in leaving the “Endymion” a drifting hulk. In lighter winds, the other two frigates overtook “President,” forcing her to surrender after much damage to sails and spars and musket fire on her crew.
In the painting, the drifting hulk of the “Endymion” can be seen astern of the “Tenedos”, which latter has crossed “President’s” stern and is raking her starboard quarter with cannon fire. The frigate “Pomone”, shown in the distance, was actually just astern of “President”, off her larboard (left) quarter, raking her with cannon fire and musket shot. The “President” soon surrendered and was taken to Bermuda as a prize. Although defeated, the “President’s” captain, Stephen Decatur, and the crew were accorded great respect by the British for their bravery in the face of overwhelming odds. (3)
While the depicted scene of action is at odds with accounts of the battle—particularly the “Endymion’s location in the scene—this license was likely excused for the sake of the composition which gave the “President” an overwhelming presence despite her misfortune.
The consolation—to an American client—is a tribute to bravery and patriotism which transcended the ignominy of defeat and loss of comrades.
– Erik Ronnberg
References:
(1) Ann Prentice Wagner, "The United States Frigate 'President' Engaging the British Squadron, 1815" [cat. entry], in Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945, ed. Sarah Cash (Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art in association with Hudson Hills Press, 2011), 98-99.
(2) Philip Chadwick Foster Smith, The Artful Roux: Marine Painters of Marseille, Including a Catalogue of the Roux Family Paintings at the Peabody Museum of Salem. (Salem: Peabody Museum, 1978).
(3) James Barnes, Naval Actions of the War of 1812 (New York: Harper Brothers Publishers, 1896), 219 -227.
- Subject Types
: - Vessel Types
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Historical Materials

Oil on canvas
28 x 42 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Corcoran Collection (Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lansdell K. Christie) (2014.136.82)
Detail of naval vessel.
Filed under: Naval / Government Vessel »

Government-owned vessels were mainly concerned with defense of the nation (i.e. the U.S. Navy), the regulation of foreign commerce via enforcement of tariffs and seizure of contraband (i.e. the U.S. Revenue Service), and aids to navigation (i.e. the U.S. Lighthouse Service; coastal life-saving was in the hands of civic organizations).
Naval vessels were classified according to a multitude of duties, which in turn determined hull form and size, propulsion (sail, engine-powered, oars), and numbers and duties of crews.
Revenue service vessels varied from small harbor craft, swift-sailing schooners for coastal and harbor patrols, and large square-rigged (and later engine-powered) ships for off-shore duty. These vessels worked closely with customs houses in seaports with significant foreign commerce.
Oil on canvas
15 3/4 x 23 1/4 in.
Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tenn., Museum Purchase (1968.4)
Detail of navel vessel.
Also filed under: "Constitution" (U.S. Frigate) »
Oil on canvas
28 x 42 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Corcoran Collection (Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Lansdell K. Christie) (2014.136.82)
Detail of naval vessel.
Hand-colored lithograph
Published by N. Currier, New York
Library of Congress catalog number 93514426
Also filed under: Currier (& Ives) – New York »

The ensign of the United States refers to the flag of the United States when used as a maritime flag to indentify nationality. As required on entering port, a vessel would fly her own ensign at the stern, but a conventional token of respect to the host country would be to fly the flag of the host country (the United States in Boston Harbor, for example) at the foremast. See The "Britannia" Entering Boston Harbor, 1848 (inv. 49) for an example of a ship doing this. The American ensign often had the stars in the canton arranged in a circle with one large star in the center; an alternative on merchant ensigns was star-shaped constellation. In times of distress a ship would fly the ensign upside down, as can be seen in Wreck of the Roma, 1846 (inv. 250).
The use of flags on vessels is different from the use of flags on land. The importance and history of the flagpole in Fresh Water Cove in Gloucester is still being studied.
The modern meaning of the flag was forged in December 1860, when Major Robert Anderson moved the U.S. garrison from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Adam Goodheart argues this was the opening move of the American Civil War, and the flag was used throughout northern states to symbolize American nationalism and rejection of secessionism.
Before that day, the flag had served mostly as a military ensign or a convenient marking of American territory, flown from forts, embassies, and ships, and displayed on special occasions like American Independence day. But in the weeks after Major Anderson's surprising stand, it became something different. Suddenly the Stars and Stripes flew—as it does today, and especially as it did after the September 11 attacks in 2001—from houses, from storefronts, from churches; above the village greens and college quads. For the first time American flags were mass-produced rather than individually stitched and even so, manufacturers could not keep up with demand. As the long winter of 1861 turned into spring, that old flag meant something new. The abstraction of the Union cause was transfigured into a physical thing: strips of cloth that millions of people would fight for, and many thousands die for.
– Adam Goodheart, Prologue of 1861: The Civil War Awakening (2011).
1860s Stereograph card Cape Ann Museum Library & Archive
A view of a Cove on the western side of Gloucester Harbor, with the landing at Brookbank. Houses are seen in the woods back. A boat with two men is in the foreground.
Also filed under: Brookbank » // Fresh Water Cove » // Historic Photographs »
Courtesy American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. (CL.F9116.011.1854 CL.F9116.011.1854)
Also filed under: Oak Hall »
Courtesy American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. (CL.F9116.011.1854)
Also filed under: Oak Hall »

The use of signal flags, for ship-to-ship communication, generally preceded land-based chains of maritime semaphore stations, the latter using flags or rotating arms, until the advent of the electric or magnetic telegraph.
Until the end of the Napoleonic wars, merchant ships generally sailed in convoy as ordered by the escorting warship(s) using a few simple flags. Peace brought independent voyaging, the end of the convoy system, and the realization by various authorities that merchant vessels now needed their own separate means of signaling to each other. This resulted in a handful of rival codes, each with its individual flags and syntax. In general, they each had a section enabling ship identification and also a "vocabulary" section for transmitting selected messages. It was not until 1857 that a common Commercial Code became available for international use, only gradually replacing the earlier ones. All existed side by side for a decade or two.
Signal systems for American ships were originally intended to identify a vessel by name and owner; only later were more advanced systems developed to convey messages. Most basic were private signals, or "house flags", each of a different design or pattern, identifying the vessel's owner; identification charts were local and poorly distributed, limiting their usefulness. A secondary signal, a flag or large pennant bearing the vessel's name, was sometimes flown by larger ships, but pictorial records of them are uncommon. These private signal flags usually flew from the foremasthead or main masthead if a three master ship. Pilot boats had their own identifying flags, blue and white as seen in Spitfire Entering Boston Harbor, n.d. (inv. 536). Small vessels, such as schooners, often had a "tell-tale" pennant, an often-unmarked and often red flag, that was used to determine wind direction.
A numerical code flag system, identifying vessels by the code numbers, was introduced by Captain Frederick Marryat R.N. in 1817 for English vessels. American vessels soon adopted this system. Elford's "marine telegraphic system" was the first American equivalent to the Marryat code flags, first issued in 1823, and with changes, remaining in use until the late 1850s. Most of the signal flags on vessels depicted by Lane use Elford's; Brig "Antelope" in Boston Harbor, 1863 (inv. 43) is a noteworthy example of his depiction of Marryat's. The Elford's Code was popular in America on account of its simplicity and only required six blue and white flags. Eventually these changed to red and white, although it is unclear exactly when this happened. Instructions and a key ot the Elford's Code's use are included in successive editions of the Boston Harbor Signal Book.
Whereas the other codes employ at least ten flags of diverse shapes and colours, there are only six Elford flags in total, representing the numbers one to six. All are uniformly rectangular and monochrome in colour (either blue and white or red and white—or even black and white as in an early photograph). Selected from these six flags each individual vessel is allotted a combination of four flags to be prominently displayed as a vertical hoist. Reading from above down these convey its "designated number." Armed with this number and the type of vessel (e.g. ship, bark, brig, schooner /or steamer) the subject can be uniquely identified by reference to a copy of the Boston Harbor Signal Book for the appropriate year.
– A. Sam Davidson
As reproduced in Yankee Sailing Ship Cards by Allan Forbes and Ralph M. Eastman (Boston: State Street Trust Company, 1948).
Also filed under: "Eastern Star" (Bark) » // Forbes, Robert Bennet »
Harvard Depository: Widener (NAV 578.57)
For digitized version, click here.
Also filed under: Boston Harbor »
Boston: Eastburn's Press
New York Public Library
Complete book is included in Google Books, click here.
In The American Neptune 3, no. 3 (July 1943): 205–21.
Peabody Essex Museum
Descriptions of Marryat, Elford, Rogers, and commercial code signal systems, and private signals. Includes illustrations of flag systems with color keys.

Born to a family of hydrographers established in Marseilles since the late 1600s, Ange-Joseph Antoine Roux was the third generation to pursue the business of publishing, manufacturing, and selling charts and navigating instruments in the French port of Marseille. His father, Joseph Roux, was – from surviving examples – a competent portrayer (in oils) of ships, only a few of which are to be found in American collections.
Unlike his father, Ange-Joseph (or Antoine Roux, as we call him today) worked only in watercolors, developing a style marked by precise proportions and details in vessels set in seas with sharp, formulaic wave patterns which became softer and more realistic in later years.
Many of Antoine’s early (late eighteenth-century) works were ex voto pictures of vessels which were lost in battle or in storms. Given to churches as offerings of gratitude and devotion for the donor’s survival, many still hang in Catholic sanctuaries at Marseilles and other French ports, as is the case with other artists’ works in other European ports.
By the early 1800s, Antoine Roux’s style had matured and attracted the attention of American ships’ officers (merchant and naval) who commissioned portraits of their vessels. The vessels' owners, on seeing these pictures, ordered their ships’ captains to bring home their vessels’ portraits for display in the counting house – or in the parlor. This was also true for senior naval officers, who wanted portraits of ships they had commanded during the Barbary Wars and in other naval engagements in the early nineteenth century.
Antoine Roux had three sons and one daughter, all of whom took up ship portraiture, though only the sons did so as a source of income. Of the brothers, Mathieu-Antoine was the least productive, as the unvaried nature of his compositions and style suggest. Frederic was the most productive, his style being refined and consistent, with strong narrative content in the vessels’ maneuvers and crew activity. Francois-Geoffroi was less productive than Frederic, but many of his compositions and the posing of his vessels were the most imaginative and lively.
–Erik Ronnberg
References:
Alfred Johnson, “Ships and Shipping: A Collection of Pictures Including Many American Vessels Painted by Antoine Roux and His Sons” (Salem, MA: Marine Research Society, 1925). Includes a translation of Louis Bres, “Une Dynastie de Peintres da Marine, Antoine Roux et ses Fils” (Marseilles, 1883).
Philip Chadwick Foster Smith, “The Artful Roux: Marine Painters of Marseille” (Salem, MA: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1978).
Labels: Label on the reverse of the frame at top right center: "IN THE LANSDELL K. —[torn]— COLLECTION/ OF THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART/ 17th and New York Avenue, N.W./ Washington, DC".
Label on the backing board from the Whitney Museum of American Art for the exhibition "Realism and Romanticism in 19th Century New England Landscapes," September 15 - November 29, 1989.