A proven packet from the heart of American merchant sail, HARVEST QUEEN birthed from the design and yard of New York's William H. Webb in 1854. Her shining moment came in 1857 when on a winter western run from Liverpool to New York, she made a 16-day crossing. Only one other packet, YORKSHIRE eleven years earlier, ever performed this feat. Many packets never sailed the Western Route in under 25 days.
Jacobsen, and other marine artists felt the pinch of the declining commissions once the heyday of sail had passed, and supplemented their early 20TH Century incomes with decorative works revisiting the grandeur of the clipper and packet ships of their youth. Jacobsen surely felt some of their pride, to so accurately research and remember the glory found by the ships from the China Trade, the Cape Horn route to California, and the Atlantic crossings. Here he rakes the HARVEST QUEEN strongly on a challenging sea, with only the fore main sail and her six topsails engaging the prevailing current and wind.
A solitary sailor stands watch at the bow, with the gilt trailboard sparkling beneath. Perfectly scaled to the 188.3'l x 40'b x 28.5'd of the ship, he looks warily at the darkening sky, and whispers a prayer for the safe passage. HARVEST QUEEN sailed expertly for 20 years for the Black Ball Line of C.h. Marshall & Company of New York, until a fateful collision with the S.S. ADRIATIC on Dec. 31, 1875 ended it all far too soon.
