The Benjamin Franklin

Paintings attributed to Thomas Chambers are united by his characteristic "brilliance of palette" and "rhythmic" decorative compositions (Kathleen A. Foster, Thomas Chambers: American Marine and Landscape Painter, 1808-1869 (New Haven, Connecticut, 2008) p. 1).This gem-like painting includes bold clouds and a rough sea adding drama and textural repetition to this ship portrait. Few signed examples of Chamber's work survive and little biographical information known about Chambers beyond the facts that he was born in Whitby in England in 1808, lived in the United States and died in London, England in 1869. Chambers arrived in New Orleans in 1832 and worked in New York, Boston and Albany until 1855 after which scholars are unable to trace his residence again until his death. Known as a maritime and landscape painter this small sized example depicts a sailing steamship just as its leaving or returning to harbor.

The sailing steamship Benjamin Franklin was probably built between 1830 and 1845 because after 1845 the less efficient side paddle wheel was replaced by the more efficient screw propeller. The Benjamin Franklin could have been sailing for the New York & Boston Steamboat Line or the Boston & Philadelphia Line, both of which transported passengers between cities on the east coast. The city in the background could be Boston, Providence, or Philadelphia. Thomas Birch also depicts the Steamsailor Benjamin Franklin in another painting (Sold, Christie's, New York, 16 March 1994, lot 13).