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Log inTale of boat's trip to gold rush told on 40 feet of art
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Tale of boat's trip to gold rush told on 40 feet of art
by Outspoken on Sat Aug 09, 2008 6:29 am
Tale of boat's trip to gold rush told on 40 feet of art
The panaroma by an unknown illustrator shows Portland Harbor, starting point for the voyage west.
By BOB KEYES
Staff Writer Portland Press Herald
BATH — The year was 1850, and people by the thousands headed west in search of gold.
Many traveled over land in covered wagons, crossing rivers, mountains and the treacherous Great Plains. Others came by boat, traveling down the eastern seaboard, around the tip of South America and up the Pacific Coast in a journey that would last six months or longer.
This summer, the Maine Maritime Museum is showing a 40-foot painted panorama of one such journey, very likely made during the voyage of a boat that sailed from Maine to California.
The hand-illustrated panorama offers a unique vision of one of early America's most important westward migrations, and illustrates Maine's role in the country's expansion.
The piece is on display until early October as part of the Maine Maritime Museum's participation in the Maine Folk Art Trail, a statewide exhibition of folk-art artifacts that culminates Sept. 28 with a Folk Art Symposium at Bates College in Lewiston.
It's the first time in memory that the panorama has been seen in large chunks; previously, only small sections were on display.
With remarkable detail and a charming child-like quality, the unknown painter illustrated scenes of Portland Harbor, with the Portland Observatory, church steeples and other landmarks clearly visible. At the other end of the journey, the illustrator showed oversized gold nuggets sitting in wait on the shore and men tussling over their prize.
The scenes are painted on paper in watercolor, with pen and ink to show boat rigging and other fine details.
In one section, the seafarer painted a rendition of a Chinese junk boat. The details of the junk -- its lines, rigging and flags -- are precise, suggesting that the panel is authentic and not the product of someone's imagination, said museum curator Chris Hall.
"Someone obviously had to have seen a junk, because there is enough detail there that it could not have been made up," Hall said. "And the only place you would have seen a junk at that time would have been in the Pacific. Chinese laborers were coming to California by the hundreds."
The question remains: Who made the painting?
No one knows for sure.
An antique dealer found the illustration in the attic of a Thomaston home in 1990, and sold it to another antique dealer, Patricia Stauble of Wiscasset. In turn, she arranged for it to land in the collection of the Maine Maritime Museum.
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=203822&ac=PHnws
Photos Courtesy Maine Maritime Museum
The panaroma by an unknown illustrator shows Portland Harbor, starting point for the voyage west.
By BOB KEYES
Staff Writer Portland Press Herald
BATH — The year was 1850, and people by the thousands headed west in search of gold.
Many traveled over land in covered wagons, crossing rivers, mountains and the treacherous Great Plains. Others came by boat, traveling down the eastern seaboard, around the tip of South America and up the Pacific Coast in a journey that would last six months or longer.
This summer, the Maine Maritime Museum is showing a 40-foot painted panorama of one such journey, very likely made during the voyage of a boat that sailed from Maine to California.
The hand-illustrated panorama offers a unique vision of one of early America's most important westward migrations, and illustrates Maine's role in the country's expansion.
The piece is on display until early October as part of the Maine Maritime Museum's participation in the Maine Folk Art Trail, a statewide exhibition of folk-art artifacts that culminates Sept. 28 with a Folk Art Symposium at Bates College in Lewiston.
It's the first time in memory that the panorama has been seen in large chunks; previously, only small sections were on display.
With remarkable detail and a charming child-like quality, the unknown painter illustrated scenes of Portland Harbor, with the Portland Observatory, church steeples and other landmarks clearly visible. At the other end of the journey, the illustrator showed oversized gold nuggets sitting in wait on the shore and men tussling over their prize.
The scenes are painted on paper in watercolor, with pen and ink to show boat rigging and other fine details.
In one section, the seafarer painted a rendition of a Chinese junk boat. The details of the junk -- its lines, rigging and flags -- are precise, suggesting that the panel is authentic and not the product of someone's imagination, said museum curator Chris Hall.
"Someone obviously had to have seen a junk, because there is enough detail there that it could not have been made up," Hall said. "And the only place you would have seen a junk at that time would have been in the Pacific. Chinese laborers were coming to California by the hundreds."
The question remains: Who made the painting?
No one knows for sure.
An antique dealer found the illustration in the attic of a Thomaston home in 1990, and sold it to another antique dealer, Patricia Stauble of Wiscasset. In turn, she arranged for it to land in the collection of the Maine Maritime Museum.
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=203822&ac=PHnws
Photos Courtesy Maine Maritime Museum
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Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
