The French steamer Chateau Yquem outward-bound for New York

The three-masted auxiliary steamer Chateau Yquem was the last vessel ordered for the short-lived so-called Bordeaux Line in its attempt to run a profitable emigrant service from that port to New York. Built by Chantiers & Ateliers de la Gironde at Bordeaux, she was launched in November 1883 and completed for sea the following June. Registered at 4,211 tons gross (2,270 net), she measured 387 feet in length with a 41 foot beam, could steam at 12 knots, and had accommodation for 50 first class and 1,200 steerage passengers. Unfortunately for her owners, there were never enough emigrants to justify running a scheduled service out of Bordeaux, with the result that Chateau Yquem was often to be seen on other routes, including a charter to Vera Cruz via Havana in 1888. In the absence of any buyer when she was put up for sale in 1895, she was first chartered by the French government as a troop transport for about a year and then acquired by the Fabre Line which operated her out of Marseilles to New York. Renamed Gallia in 1900, she was finally laid up in 1910 and scrapped in Italy soon afterwards.

In his Checklist of Jacobsen's work, Harold Sniffen lists only one picture of Chateau Yquem executed in 1889; this hitherto unrecorded portrait was undoubtedly painted to mark the vessel's arrival in New York after her maiden voyage in July 1884.