Help Identify the ship in this painting

BenD · Apr 18, 2022

While browsing an antique shop in Toronto I came across this gem for $35. I think It's a clipper ship but I don't know what one. I've also looked up the artist W.Hughes but couldn't find this painting in his known works. It's a reprint and it has some damage and the frame is in rough shape.

Now I want more paintings like this

Jimple · Apr 18, 2022

I certainly agree with Clipper, figure head very close to that on the Cutty Sark , though missing studdingsails.

Encre de Chine · Apr 23, 2022

Clipper, or at least full rigged merchant ship would be correct.
Certainly not Cutty Sark as she was built with split topsails, so you'd have to look at earlier ships, before 1850.

Kutuzov · Apr 23, 2022

The green hull and the clipper rig suggests Thermopylae to me.

Bob Ellis · Apr 23, 2022

BenD said:
While browsing an antique shop in Toronto I came across this gem for $35. I think It's a clipper ship but I don't know what one. I've also looked up the artist W.Hughes but couldn't find this painting in his known works. It's a reprint and it has some damage and the frame is in rough shape.

Now I want more paintings like this

View attachment 304029

W Hughes was an alias for C Hjalmar Amundsen. An original would be around 400US. Usually titled 'A Wndjammer in a ....etc' or something similar without the ship being identified, so possibly a generic tea clipper. Thermopylae didn't have a figurehead as far as I remember. It's not Cutty Sark's figurehead, Ariel has a more ornate bow, so I guess Taeping?

Jimmy · Apr 23, 2022

Also Cutty Sark did not have shrouds fixed to outboard chain wales.

Luiz B. F. Grassi · Apr 23, 2022

I think it's a Clipper without a specific identity. The artist simply reproduced an impressive image that he kept in his memory, mixing features from various ships of the time.

JerryTodd · Apr 23, 2022

Look up her number (flags at main mast truck) on Captain Marryat's Code of Signals on Google Books.

Encre de Chine · Apr 24, 2022

Bob Ellis said:
W Hughes was an alias for C Hjalmar Amundsen. An original would be around 400US. Usually titled 'A Wndjammer in a ....etc' or something similar without the ship being identified, so possibly a generic tea clipper. Thermopylae didn't have a figurehead as far as I remember. It's not Cutty Sark's figurehead, Ariel has a more ornate bow, so I guess Taeping?

Thermopylae also does not match because of her split topsails, so Ariel too
the rig of Taeping is more of a match, although many pictures show her with scrolls on the bow
i would also vote for the generic boat