Catalogue Entry

This lithograph, printed at Thayer's and published by Henry Prentiss, is not signed. James Craig, in his 2006 book, suggested that it should be attributed to Lane.

Hove-to off East Boston with Charlestown, the Boston Navy Yard, and Bunker Hill Monument in the distance, a large American frigate fires a salute as her commanding officer approaches in a quarter boat to board ship and pass orders to get under way. As seen in the viewpoint map, this vessel has to be close to the East Boston shoreline in order to be in correct proportion to the background. If the depicted vessel was (very likely) intended to be the frigate “Constitution,” whose draft was nearly 25 feet, she would be aground in 22 feet (or less) of water at high tide. (1) Clearly, Lane chose the background and direction of view for both aesthetic and compositional reasons, positioning the warship for the same reasons without concern for bottom depth.

The large building at the shore line is a “ship house”—heavily constructed and large enough to build warships of the largest classes.  American naval shipbuilding programs slowed in peacetime, and the only way to keep hulls under construction from deteriorating over years of exposure to the elements was to build them in large sheds. Over time, the example visible here would have two neighbors like it. The viewpoint chart shows two ship houses on the 1846-53 shore line, suggesting that this lithograph was published prior to 1846 but after 1840. (2)

Low-lying retaining bulkheads fronting the navy yard at extreme left and right are “wet basins,” or “timber basins,” where heavy ship timbers were stored for future use. When waterlogged, they would sink into the muddy bottom where anaerobic conditions would “season” and preserve them for future shipbuilding projects – sometimes decades into the future. (3) Two warships “in ordinary” are also in this background. One is having its masts unstepped (removed) while the other is a bare hull, stripped of rig and armament.

From the viewpoint of composition, this a fine lithograph, combining careful composition, compelling narrative, and exquisite rendering of detail. Although undated, it was printed by Thayer & Company, a Boston firm established in 1840 and doing business until 1853. Lane made lithographs for this firm occasionally as well as for others, suggesting a free-lance relationship with Boston lithographers after full-time employment at Pendleton’s and a few years at Moore’s, where this print was made. (4)

– Erik Ronnberg

References:
1. Howard I. Chapelle, “The History of the American Sailing Navy” (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1949), Plan 7.
2. W. H. Bunting, “Portrait of a Port: Boston, 1852 – 1914” (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 43.
3. Ibid, pp 438, 439.
4. Sally Pierce and Catharina Slautterback, “Boston Lithography: 1825 – 1880” (Boston, MA: The Boston Athenaeum, 1991), pp. 141, 144, 155, 156, 177.