Schooner Yacht AMERICA Crossing U.S.S. CONSTITUTION, Newport, RI, 1865

oil on canvas, 36” x 48"

$70,000

What American history this one remarkable painting contains! It features two of our Nation’s most iconic sailing vessels, two storied Naval Sloops of War, all set in the Civil War, home of the U.S. Naval Academy!

In this dramatic recreation of an actual U..S. Naval Academy Cruise, Artist A.D. Blake, the world’s most famous yacht, the Schooner Yacht America, which captured the 100 Guineas Cup trophy, henceforth renamed the “America’s Cup” of the Isle of Wight, in 1851 – races daringly across the bow of the most famous American warship, ”Old Ironsides,” the U.S.S. Constitution – built as one of the original six frigates to begin the United States Naval Fleet by order of Congress in 1794. She participated heroically in the most significant Naval action that involved our sailing ships.

Today she still remains commissioned as an active warship in the U.S. Navy and is birthed at the Charlestown Naval Yard in Boston, Massachusetts, where she arrived on September 21, 1897, and is considered the National symbol of our U.S. Navy. To the left can be seen two sloops of war, the Marion, which was built and launched in the Boston Navy Yard in 1839 and remained active in the Navy until 1907, and the Macedonian, which had a long-distinguished career, which included carrying food to Ireland during the great famine of 1840 and participating in Commodore Matthew Perry’s expedition to Tokyo in 1852.

What were all these vessels doing in the same place you ask? Well, when the Civil War began in 1861, the U.S. Naval Academy was actually moved from Annapolis, Maryland, to Newport, Rhode Island, first to Fort Adams, then to what is now the location of the Viking Hotel in downtown Newport! Naval cadets were using all of these vessels as training ships. At this moment, the war had ended in April, 1865, and these vessels were now on their way from Newport to Annapolis where the Naval Academy had been re-established. In the background can be seen the historic Fort Adams itself, still standing today – and the site of many Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals, with parts of town the host of many America’s Cup Races.