Fame was clearly an extremely popular ship's name towards the end of the eighteenth century judging by the contemporary entries in Lloyd's Registers. Reference to the 1793 edition - in which any ships built the previous year and subsequently surveyed by Lloyd's would appear for the first time - reveals thirty-one vessels named Fame, ranging from a substantial full-rigged ship of 450 tons down to a small sloop of 32 tons. The dates of build are equally disparate and although the List contains seven vessels classed as having a full ship-rig, only one of those was actually built in 1792. She was however a mere 150 tons and since the proportions of the ship depicted here appear much larger, it seems unlikely that the vessel in this painting can be positively identified.