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Catalogue Entry
- The Mariners' Museum (inv. 739)The Mariners' Museum (inv. 739)
In 1855 the Nautical Magazine published an article on R.B. Forbes's steam demi-bark, "Antelope." The article included a lithograph of the vessel made after a painting by Lane. J. P. Newell is signed on the stone in the lower right corner, indicating that he was the artist who lithographed Lane's design. The lithograph for the magazine was printed on tissue-weight paper, and hand-colored. (for example, Steam demi bark Antelope, 615 tons, c.1855 (inv. 375)) A stand-alone version (Steam demi bark Antelope, 615 tons, c.1855 (inv. 740)) was printed on a heavier paper, hand-colored and printed with a tint stone outlining the sky. This lithograph is a third version which has an inscription indicating the original place of publication in the Nautical Magazine. The painting from which this lithograph was made is likely the grisaille painting The "Antelope", 1855 (inv. 678).
Historical Materials
top]top]Filed under: "Antelope" (Steam Demi-Bark) »
top] The steam demi-bark "Antelope" was designed jointly by Samuel Hall and Samuel H. Pook and built in Hall's shipyard at East Boston in 1855. The design concept and construction were closely overseen by Robert Bennet Forbes; the machinery was constructed by Otis Tufts and turned a Griffith propeller. Designed for traveling in pirate-infested Far Eastern waters, the vessel was heavily armed, even fitted out with a pump able to throw hot water from her boilers to a distance of 100 yards. Even the term "demi-bark" was novel, as the barkentine rig was then a novelty itself. John W. Griffiths, in describing this vessel, proposed the term "brigantern," a cross between "brigantine" and "tern," the latter term for a three-mast schooner.
This vessel was described at length by Griffiths in The U.S. Nautical Magazine and Naval Journal 3 (October 1855), 11–17, including Lane's lithograph.
– Erik Ronnberg
"The American Neptune" vol. 1, no. 1 January 1941 pp. 51-57
Also filed under: "Massachusetts" (Auxiliary Steam Packet Ship) » // Forbes, Robert Bennet »
The Mariners' Museum (inv. 739)
