The marine paintings of William A. Coulter provide an alluring glimpse of the ships that visited the West Coast around the turn of the century. In this fine work, Coulter has placed one of the great sailing ships to carry on into the early 20th Century, the Clipper GLORY OF THE SEAS, off the Farallon Islands just outside the Golden Gate.
Coulter's firsthand knowledge is evident here as he shows the full-rigged clipper after her rendezvous with the San Francisco local Pilot Schooner LADY MINE, No. 9, trailing the horizon line. Leaving the rain swept islands off the California coast, the large clipper is headed toward the Golden Gate to her berth. The Barneson-Hibbard houseflag flies above the main, announcing her West Coast ownership. The company expanded in this era to form one of the last whaling groups, the Tyee Company, to compliment their commercial cargo runs. The clipper would serve her last in the 1920s Alaskan waters.
Coulter has created a stirring maritime narrative of this grand clipper. Built in 1869 by the renown Donald McKay of East Boston, she'd prove to be the last, and many would claim the greatest, of the clippers he built.
