The Royal Mail steamer Atrato anchored off Montevideo with her tender approaching

The second vessel in the Royal Mail Line's fleet to be called Atrato was a single-screw three-masted steamer built on the Clyde by Robert Napier & Sons in 1888. Registered at 5,366 tons gross (3,069 net), she measured 421 feet in length with a 50 foot beam and had accommodation for 279 passengers in three classes. Capable of 15 knots and the first Royal Mail liner to carry masts entirely devoid of yards, she was designed for the company's original West Indies' service and operated on that route until 1912 except for her maiden voyage from Southampton to Buenos Aires in January 1889. Sold to the Viking Cruising Company in October 1912 and renamed The Viking the following year, she spent almost two years cruising the Norwegian fjords until commandeered by the Admiralty upon the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914. Converted into an Armed Merchant Cruiser under the new name of H.M.S. Viknor, she was sunk off Tory Island, Ulster, on 13^th January 1915 after striking, it was believed, a rogue mine which had broken loose in bad weather.

Since this work portrays Atrato off Montevideo, it is presumably intended to show her when she made her only recorded call there during her maiden voyage early in 1889.