SP 4169
MONTAGUE DAWSON, RSMA, FRSA
Chiswick 1895 - 1973 Midhurst, Sussex
The Flying Fish
Signed lower left: MONTAGUE DAWSON
Canvas: 40 x 50 in / 101.6 x 127 cm
Framed size: 48 x 57 ¾ x 2 ¾ in / 121.9 x 146.7 x 7 cm
Painted in 1962
Provenance:
Private collection, Palm Beach, USA
Montague Dawson celebrates the grace of the China clipper Flying Fish, cracking on with every sail set. The Flying Fish, in the words of Basil Lubbock, was ‘one of the fastest and most beautiful clippers designed by Donald Mackay, and her records were very nearly as good as those of the celebrated Flying Cloud’.
Clipper design developed in response to the California Gold Rush of 1849, when thousands of prospectors required transport and goods to sustain them in their quest. Transporting goods by waggon across America was long and dangerous; it was more profitable to ship them round the Horn, a voyage that required swift but strong vessels. Donald Mackay of Boston was the genius of clipper design; he never had a failure. The Flying Fish, launched in 1851 and owned by Sampson & Tappan, was the third of his clippers. Of 1505 tons, she was 198.6 ft long with a beam of 38.2 ft. and a depth of 22 ft.
In November 1851 the Flying Fish raced the new clipper Swordfish, a masterpiece by the New York shipbuilder William H Webb, to San Francisco for large stakes. The Flying Fish made the passage from Boston to San Francisco in ninety-eight days, the Swordfish from New York to San Francisco in ninety-two. A year later the Flying Fish duelled with the John Gilpin, designed by Boston’s other great shipbuilder, Sam Hall, in another race to San Francisco. The two ships were neck and neck for much of the voyage. Finding themselves in company off the Horn, Captain Nickels of the Flying Fish actually invited Captain Doane of the John Gilpin to dine with him: a pleasure that Captain Doane had to forgo, given the nature of Cape Horn weather. The Flying Fish made the passage in ninety-two days, arriving on 1st February 1853; the John Gilpin arrived two days later.
Flying Fish’s 1852-3 run to San Francisco was the best of her career. In November 1858 she was wrecked on her way out of the Min River, loaded with Foochow tea for New York. The wreck of this handsome ship was sold to a Spanish merchant of Manila, who had her rebuilt at Whampoa. She traded successfully for several years between Manila and Cadiz under the name of El Bueno Suceso, before foundering and disappearing for ever in the South China Seas.
Montague Dawson also made a painting of the Flying Fish in port off the China coast (private collection).
MONTAGUE DAWSON, RSMA, FRSA
Chiswick 1895 - 1973 Midhurst, Sussex
Montague Dawson was the son of a keen yachtsman and the grandson of the marine painter Henry Dawson (1811-1878). Much of his childhood was spent on Southampton Water where he was able to indulge his interest in the study of ships. For a brief period around 1910 Dawson worked for a commercial art studio in London, but with the outbreak of the First World War he joined the Royal Navy. Whilst serving with the Navy in Falmouth he met Charles Napier Hemy (1841-1917), who considerably influenced his work. Dawson was present at the final surrender of the German Grand Fleet and many of his illustrations depicting the event were published in the Sphere.
After the War, Dawson established himself as a professional marine artist, concentrating on historical subjects and portraits of deep-water sailing ships often in stiff breeze or on high seas. During the Second World War, he was employed as a war artist and again worked for the Sphere. Dawson exhibited regularly at the Royal Society of Marine Artists, of which he became a member, from 1946 to 1964, and occasionally at the Royal Academy between 1917 and 1936. By the 1930s he was considered one of the greatest living marine artists, whose patrons included two American Presidents, Dwight D Eisenhower and Lyndon B Johnson, as well as the British Royal Family.
The work of Montague Dawson is represented in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich and the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth.