Items Similar to The Start of the Great 1866 Transatlantic Yacht Race
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5
James Edward ButtersworthThe Start of the Great 1866 Transatlantic Yacht RaceCirca 1867
Circa 1867
About the Item
A beautiful painting with historic importance, three schooner yachts line up before the Sandy Hook Lightship for the start of the world's first Transatlantic Yacht Race held in 1866. In his book, "J.E. Buttersworth, 19th Century Marine Painter", biographer Rudolph J. Schaefer has noted six views by the artist of this event. This is largest of the known works of this important benchmark in American yacht racing.
Identification of the racing schooners is assisted by the special colored flags worn by the yachts. Foremost in the painting, wearing the Blue was HENRIETTA, owned by renowned newspaper publisher and infamous yachtsman James Gordon Bennett, Jr. White was atop the mast of VESTA, owned by tobacco baron and racehorse aficionado Pierre Lorillard, who initiated the competition with a dinner party boast over turtle soup that his 105-foot schooner was the fastest yacht afloat. The Red flag identified prominent New York Yacht Club members George and Franklin Osgood's famous FLEETWING. A wager of $30,000 each was put up the yacht owners for the head-to-head-to-head match race across the Atlantic Ocean. Bennett's HENRIETTA was the first to the finish off the Isle of Wight with a time of 13 days, 21 hours and 45 minutes winning the then-unrivaled and unheard of purse for any race of $90,000 or $1.3M in today's dollars.
Buttersworth's attention to minute detail shows the racing crews lining the windward rail on all three yachts with all sails set on a broad reach, using organized discipline to pull hard at the rope lines. The elongated bows and colorful treatment of sea and sky make this an excellent work of Buttersworth’s favorite subject matter and superior style. Since the winner HENRIETTA is so prominently featured, one must assume that Buttersworth painted this after the results were known, possibly for Bennett himself.
Sight Size: 23 ½ x 31 ½ Inches
Signed LR: J.E. Buttersworth
Provenance: Provenance: Prominent California Collection; Vallejo Gallery, Prestigious Museum Collection, Minnesota
Vallejo Gallery features the finest in marine and maritime antiques, artifacts and fine art including pieces of naval and yachting history including the America’s Cup, the age of the clipper ships and merchant ships through to the great passenger and ocean liners of the early 20th Century. We are always seeking to purchase the finest quality maritime and marine themed art.
- Creator:James Edward Buttersworth (1817-1894, American)
- Creation Year:Circa 1867
- Dimensions:Height: 33 in (83.82 cm)Width: 41 in (104.14 cm)
- Medium:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Costa Mesa, CA
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2139211254382
About the Seller
No Reviews Yet
Vetted Seller
These experienced sellers undergo a comprehensive evaluation by our team of in-house experts.
Established in 1972
1stDibs seller since 2022
5 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: 1 to 2 days
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Costa Mesa, CA
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 7 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- American Steam Schooner Meets British Frigates Crossing the English ChannelBy James Edward ButtersworthLocated in Costa Mesa, CAThree ships - an American Three-Masted Steam Schooner, a British Sailing Royal Navy Frigate and a British Sidewheel Steam Naval Frigate - are all challenged by a tempestuous sea in this English Channel crossing scene. The British sailors work in unison to reef and employ sails on both frigates, running with the heavy, wind-driven sea towards Ramsgate, while the fore-and-aft rigged steam schooner burns her boilers while keeping her sails up to help stabilize the pitch and roll of the American ship, headed to continental Europe. Buttersworth has expertly detailed the actions of the men, their ships and the dramatic setting. Many other ships lay at anchorages off the Kent coast, showing from the Cliffs of Dover to the fortifications of Ramsgate. This early visit by an American sail/steam vessel to England is remarkable. The first such transatlantic voyage happened in 1819, by the historic S.S. SAVANNAH, and it’d take almost 20 years to be repeated. Among the first names of American Steam Schooners to make British ports, ASP, HARRIET, and BRUTUS are among those recorded. MIDAS, a steam schooner owned by Robert Bennett Forbes, was the first American steamship to China, in 1844. Showing a varied and illuminated sky that is recognized as a signature of Buttersworth’s artistic talent in his paintings, the stormy clouds are split by a sunburst opening, reflective light creating an emotional, positive hope for the subjects. The English Channel is at its narrowest width in this stretch off Kent, home to the Cinque Ports regulating trade and naval protection in the English Southeast for centuries. Buttersworth is soon bound for life in America, making this one of his last, and in our opinion, best British scenes painted in England. Sight Size: 18 x 24 Inches Signed LR: J.E. Buttersworth Provenance: India House...Category
1830s Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Distant IslandBy Frederick WaughLocated in Costa Mesa, CAFrederick Waugh was a prolific seascape artist who generated 2,500 paintings of the sea and shore. Although it was never published, he penned a ten chapter book on marine painting. S...Category
1920s American Realist Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Solent Ones Rounding the Lepe MarkBy Montague DawsonLocated in Costa Mesa, CASolent One Racers cut across the rolling waves in this striking work by master maritime artist Montague Dawson. These are racing on the Solent, the strait between the Isle of Wight and the English mainland. The Solent One Design was one of the first One Design classes created. 22 were built between 1896 and 1897 for members of the Royal Yacht Squadron and the Island Sailing Club. Here, there is a fair wind...Category
1950s Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- At the Yacht ClubBy Edward CucuelLocated in Costa Mesa, CAArtist Edward Cucuel and his wife Clara Lotte von Marcard spent their first two decades together in Germany, mostly in a villa on Lake Ammersee in Holzhausen near Munich. It is the works created in this period, mainly outdoor scenes of young women in fashionable attire of the day, that are most collected and appreciated among his works. It’s easy to see why- they capture an elegance and sense of calm and easy leisure- of long days in gardens or by the water. This is one of those captured moments with a well-dressed woman watching the sailing yacht...Category
1920s Impressionist Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- USS CHICAGO Off Castle Williams and Governor's Island, New York HarborBy Granville PerkinsLocated in Costa Mesa, CAMaritime paintings of the late 19th Century often give great insight into the massive transition which happened in shipbuilding in that period: the end of the sailing ships as mercha...Category
1890s Other Art Style Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- MacaoBy 19th Century Chinese schoolLocated in Costa Mesa, CAThe oldest European buildings in China are along the once curved crescent shore of the Praya Grande, where the Portuguese explorers established and fortified their trading foothold with an entire continent. When they arrived in 1553, this small fishing village overlooked by a temple to an ocean goddess immediately became an important cultural center of the world and the stage for initial interactions between the East and West. Ever since, this port has played a role in the cosmopolitan course of world trade. (The harbor is extensively filled in and built upon today.) In this view, more than 300 years after the Dutch established contact in the early 17th Century and western ships first sailed in the harbor, a British Sidewheel Steamer is in the port of Macao, surrounded by more than 20 Chinese vessels. The artist's perspective, looking northwest towards the Praya Grande's center, brings Praha Hill and its stone stairway in view, with the church on top. The inlaid stone walkway of the port city is full of human figures, one wearing a special red jacket while the rest wear blue or white. One westerner in a top hat at the stern post of the closest Chinese ship directs its crew outward bound...Category
1860s Other Art Style Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
You May Also Like
- 1, 000 piece Museum Quality Collection of Art & Objects from NYC 1939 Worlds FairBy Chester BeachLocated in New York, NY1,000 piece Museum Quality Collection of Art & Objects from NYC 1939 Worlds Fair is available for sale. This sculpture, "Riders of the Elements," is the original 7' plaster maquette from the NYC 1939 World's Fair by Chester Beach...Category
1930s Art Deco Figurative Sculptures
MaterialsCanvas, Oil, Photographic Paper, Plaster
- 1, 000 piece Museum Quality Collection of Art & Objects from NYC 1939 Worlds FairBy Harry LaneLocated in New York, NY1,000 piece Museum Quality Collection of Art & Objects from NYC 1939 Worlds Fair Harry Lane (1891-1973) "1939 World’s Fair Construction," 30 x 40 inches, Oil on canvas, signed lower...Category
1930s American Modern Landscape Paintings
MaterialsPlaster, Photographic Paper, Canvas, Oil
- 1, 000 piece Museum Quality Collection of Art & Objects from NYC 1939 Worlds FairBy Ilya BolotowskyLocated in New York, NY1,000 piece Museum Quality Collection of Art & Objects from NYC 1939 Worlds Fair. Ilya Bolotowsky (1907-1981) "1939 World’s Fair Mural Study for the Hall of Medical Sciences...Category
1930s Abstract Geometric Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsCanvas, Plaster, Paper, Oil, Gouache
- Topography 6 - abstract painting in light pink, white, yellow and greyBy Natalia SitnikovaLocated in Fort Lee, NJThis painting is art work by Natalia Sitnikova made with sand, alabaster and oil paint on canvas to create a specific texture that allows to mixed art and other ways to underline a u...Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAlabaster, Sandstone
- Scenery 2 (From Topography Series) - a painting in light, grey, beige and yellowBy Natalia SitnikovaLocated in Fort Lee, NJThis painting is an abstract art work from the Topography series by Natalia Sitnikova made with sand, alabaster and oil paint on canvas to create a specific texture that allows to em...Category
2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAlabaster, Sandstone
- "p.k.d." Abstract Contemporary Art Oil on Synthetic CanvasBy Mb BoissonnaultLocated in West Hollywood, CAMB Boissonnault is a contemporary painter raised in Bennington, Vermont and now based in Venice, California. Boissonnault is a focused and prolific painter, having studied fine art f...Category
2010s Contemporary Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Synthetic, Oil