NORTHERN LIGHT OF BOSTON

Details

WILLIAM BRADFORD (1823-1892)
NORTHERN LIGHT OF BOSTON
signed indistinctly (lower right)
oil on canvas
24 x 36 in.

Literature

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Marine Collection to be found at India House (New York, 1936), pp. 26-27, no. 54.
R.C. Kugler, William Bradford: Sailing Ships & Arctic Seas, exhibition catalogue (New Bedford, Massachusetts, 2003), p. 63, fig. 34 (as Fitz Hugh Lane, Clipper Ship Northern Light).

Conditions of sale

Lot Essay

Built in South Boston and launched in 1851, the Northern Light journeyed between Boston and San Francisco. She held the record for the fastest time from San Francisco to Boston in 1853. The ship left San Francisco on March 13th and arrived in Boston on May 29th of that year. The Northern Light held this record for 140 years, until it was finally surpassed in 1993. She sank in 1861 after a collision. This works was formerly attributed to Fitz Hugh Lane (1804-1865), but the signature of William Bradford has since been discovered.

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