231

WILLIAM GAY YORKE AND JOSEPH DESILVA

New York/England/Canada, 1817-1892 and United Kingdom, 1816-c. 1875

Black Star Line packet ship Resolute off Point Lynas, 1866.

Indistinctly signed and dated lower left "Josp Desilva, L'pool, 1866" and lower right "Wm. Yorke".
Provenance:
Northeast Auctions, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, August 2006.
Acquired from the above at that sale.

The Kelton Collection of Marine Art & Artifacts.
This example is one of the only known works bearing Desilva's signature. Art historian Sam Davidson believes Desilva was both a marine artist and an agent for Liverpool painters such as Yorke and McFarlane as his trade label has been found on works by both those artists. This painting depicts the Resolute at the end of her career as a packet, painted with faux gun ports and with the identifying Black Star Line symbol emblazoned on her fore lower topsail. The house flag of Williams and Guion, managers of Black Star, flies at the main and the Marryat code hoist "2nd distinguishing pennant, 1,4,2", along with the U.S. ensign on the mizzen mast, identifies the vessel as Resolute.
Resolute was a three-deck ship built by William Webb in New York for the Black Star Line of Liverpool as a passenger packet. Resolute's career spanned nearly forty years of hard service. By the mid-1860s the passenger trade for transatlantic sailing packets was no longer profitable and Resolute was converted to the general freight trade. For the remainder of her career, she carried coal, lumber, barrel and case oil, cotton and guano to ports throughout the Pacific, South America, the Far East and Europe. Resolute was abandoned in a sinking condition in March 1886 while on a voyage from Philadelphia to Europe. At the time she was under Dutch registry and rigged as a bark.
Oil on canvas, 24" x 36". Framed 31" x 43".

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June 11, 2020 10:00 AM EDT
East Dennis, MA, US

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