Oil Painting of the Steamship CITY OF SYDNEY, 1877
date: label: date made
content: 1875
notes: label: Description
content: The painting depicts the CITY OF SYDNEY in the harbor at Venice, Italy. It is signed “Stuart 4.77” in the lower left corner. This is almost certainly Scottish-American marine artist and physician Alexander Charles Stuart (1831-1898), who lived and worked in Chester, Pennsylvania. The painting has a hole in the lower left quadrant, with some loss of canvas.
label: Description
content: The steamship CITY OF SYDNEY was built in 1875 by John Roach & Sons at Chester, Pennsylvania under contract to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (PMSC). The PMSC had successfully bid on a United States mail contract between California, Australia and New Zealand, and this vessel was one of a trio of ships built specifically for this service out of San Francisco. The CITY OF SYDNEY was a combined passenger and cargo ship, measuring 339 ft. in length, 40-1/4 ft. in beam and 3,019 tons. It had an advanced compound steam engine for propulsion. After the mail contract with the PMSC expired, the vessel transported cargo and passengers between San Francisco and Panama. It was sold in 1916 to the Bristol Bay Packing Company and converted to a six-masted barkentine for trade to Alaska. In 1919, it was reported traveling again to Australia but was later abandoned and burned for scrap metal in 1930.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Chester
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Maritime
label: See more items in
content: Art
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: TR.160080
label: accession number
content: 193224
label: catalog number
content: 160080
objectType: label: Object Name
content: painting
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: frame: 19 5/8 in x 29 3/4 in; 49.8602 cm x 75.565 cm
label: Measurements
content: inside frame: 15 1/4 in x 25 3/8 in; 38.735 cm x 64.4652 cm