A view that was a favorite backdrop of artist James E. Buttersworth, the recognizable headland of the city of Boston with the State House Capital Dome sets the scene for the return of a celebrated merchant ship, UNION, to her home port. It is on record that she returned in from a voyage to Calcutta in 1851, the year we believe this work was painted. The Clipper Age had just begun, gold was recently discovered in California, and sailing ships were the focus of all worldwide adventure.
The ship is one of many to carry the name, but it is representative of an important phase in the history of American shipbuilding. The Massachusetts-built merchant ship came into service in the 1840s, inspired by the lines of a War of 1812 privateer, and built by Josiah Barker. UNION then inspired several Boston-area shipwrights building many of the first true clipper ships to be put into service.
Buttersworth painted this work in his early American period, considered by many to be his best. The work is listed in the Rudolph Schaefer book on the artist as a known painting of incomplete information. It surfaced out of the India House Club Collection of New York, located at the historic One Hanover Square building, and once properly cleaned, was revealed to be this lost original. The sharp details of the merchant carrier set in the realistic marine narrative tells of her successful return from Calcutta, laded with cargoes of silk and spices, most likely having carried "Wenham Lake Ice" to the Hoogly River port from Boston.
