USS Constitution Through Artists’ Eyes: Part I – USS Constitution Museum

By Margherita M. Desy, Kate Monea USS Constitution ‘ s storied career has been depicted by artists for over 200 years. Most aesthetic images of “ Old Ironsides ” reflect dramatic moments in battle, whether the bombardment of Tripoli in the inaugural Barbary War or the victories against the Royal Navy in the War of 1812. There is, however, a little but growing collection of artwork portraying Constitution in quiet, more meek moments — when it was being built, repaired, or restored .
The paintings, sketches, illustrations, and photograph shown hera are arranged chronologically, according to the moment depicted in Constitution ‘ sulfur history. We naturally begin with the creation of the frigate and its launch. While there are no eighteenth hundred paintings or sketches of Constitution ‘ s construction, twentieth and twenty-first hundred artists have attempted to show the frigate ’ sulfur build and Edmund Hartt ’ s shipyard in Boston ’ s North End .

Construction: 1795-1797

The most recent artwork happens to depict the very begin of Constitution ‘ randomness construction at Hartt ’ s Shipyard in 1795. In 2015, British illustrator Stephen Biesty was commissioned by the USS Constitution Museum to develop a series of drawings to use in an animate film for the Forest to Frigate expose. The illustration below shows one department of framing during Constitution ‘ second construction. Note the ship ’ sulfur keel resting on blocks at the bottom of the build ways, the v-shaped floor timbre rising up off the keel, the multiple sections that make up the person frame, and the rib-like structure in the center forming the transom. Biesty ’ sulfur detailed drawings came to realization because of exhaustive research by Matthew Brenckle, the USS Constitution Museum ’ s inquiry historian at the time. The watercolor and ink drawings represent the best agreement at this time of how Constitution was constructed.

Cheslie D ’ Andrea ( 1913-1999 ) trained as a magazine illustrator and besides served as a fight artist during World War II. In the early-to-mid 1990s, he was the USS Constitution Museum ’ s artist-in-residence, with the mission to create scenes in Constitution ‘ s history that had not been previously depicted. D ’ Andrea represented the ship ’ south construction at Hartt ’ s Shipyard from a “ fool ’ s eye horizon, ” rendering Boston ’ s sloping landscape and the newly constructed State House on Beacon Hill. The tightly packed picture succinctly captures the play of the enormous warship that had lento risen above the North End skyline. Constitution ‘ south hull is the height of a four-story building and, by the time it was launched, the embark towered over all the buildings with the exception of the church steeples .

Launch: 1797

Charles Hoffbauer ( 1875-1957 ), was a Paris-born artist who arrived in the United States in 1909 and finally settled in Hollywood, California. In July 1940, he was hired by the New England Mutual Life Insurance Company of Boston to paint eight murals for the lobby of its modern build up on Boylston Street in Boston ’ s Back Bay neighborhood. The murals depicted Boston-area history from the 1620s to 1798 and included USS Constitution ‘ s launch in 1797. New England Life ’ s president from 1865 to 1908, Benjamin Stevens, was Constitution ‘ s ship ’ south salesclerk during the 1844 – 1846 World Cruise. His association to the ship likely had a significant influence on the decision to include “ Old Ironsides ” in the lobby murals decades late. Hoffbauer painted the murals in Hollywood, but he did visit Boston for several months to conduct research .
The mural correctly shows Constitution with its original Hercules front man on the bow, the clear waist in the center field of the upper bulwark, the copper-sheathed lower hull, and that the transport was launched without its masts ( a common inaccuracy in early twentieth hundred launch paintings ). Hoffbauer scores fairly gamey marks on his render of Constitution. however, his costume of his witnesses to the launch appears to owe more to Hollywood ’ south word picture of history than to costume historians. But, as the Los Angeles Times noted after the murals were displayed in May 1942, “ [ Hoffbauer ], who therefore loves history, has managed to present it, not as a series of theatrical events, but as something alive and breathing today ” [ “ Boston art painted here. ” ( May 4, 1942 ). Los Angeles Times, phosphorus. A2. ]. The fancifully dressed crowd in the paint ’ south foreground surely captures the spirit of excitement and celebration when Constitution, on its third base undertake, successfully launched into Boston Harbor on October 21, 1797 .

Paul Garnett is a self-taught artist and native of Massachusetts. He has painted respective different images of “ Old Ironsides, ” but a recent rendering shows the moment on October 21, 1797, when Constitution successfully entered “ her element. ” Colonel George Claghorn, Constitution ‘ s naval builder had printed a broadside on September 18, two days before the first launch undertake. Claghorn ’ s broadside simultaneously tempt Bostonians to attend the plunge and warned them of possible dangers :

“ It is suggested, as the tide will be full, that it would be necessity to the safety of spectators, particularly women and children, that they do not approach in crowd to near the margin of the adjacent wharves, as the sudden entrance of so large a body as the Frigate, will occasion an instantaneous swell of the water system, the acme of which can not be easily calculated, and against which, therefore, the delicacy of the people ought amply to guard. ” [ Massachusetts Historical Society Collection ]

constitution, which had towered over the North End waterfront for closely three years, was rightfully amazing in its size. It is not storm, therefore, to find that Claghorn believed the frigate ’ s soundbox, upon entering Boston Harbor, would set up a tidal beckon and wash people off nearby wharves !
Garnett ’ s painting, titled “ Launching Constitution, Hartt ’ s Yard – Boston – October 21, 1797, ” accurately shows that such a “ big body as the Frigate ” did not create a tidal roll or endanger those who saw the final examination, successful launch. His painting highlights several characteristics of the embark ’ randomness structure and decorations that are based on the two earliest known paintings of the transport by Michele Felice Cornè. Constitution ’ s spar deck forward did not have solid bulwarks when inaugural built, but carried assailable rails and stanchions. The black and blank hull colors indeed familiar today are not the original colors. rather, the embark had a yellow ocher artillery stripe, which was much more characteristic of european navies. The eight windows across the stern, at the captain ’ second cabin, is based on Cornè ’ s c. 1805 paint, “ Bombardment of Tripoli. ” By the War of 1812, current inquiry indicates that Constitution ‘ s stern had been changed to six windows at the cabin floor .

Repairs: 1801-1803

Aiden Lassell Ripley ( 1896-1969 ),   a native of Wakefield, Massachusetts and a graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is best known for his dissipated and search scenes. however, late in his life, Ripley executed numerous watercolour sketches for the Paul Revere Life Insurance Co. depicting crucial moments in Revere ’ s life sentence .
One such sketch illustrates the heaving down and recoppering of Constitution ‘ s lower starboard hull in late June 1803. Ripley was not trained as a marine artist as is discernible in this painting. He correctly depicts Constitution with its amphetamine masts and yards removed, but inaccurately shows the gunport doors open when they would have been closed and tightly sealed. Heaving down a vessel this size was a difficult and dangerous task not only to the vessel itself, but to the shipyard workers toiling off the staging. Ripley ’ s painting, however, has an air of calm despite the bustle of activity surrounding the ship. And, contrary to how it is shown here, Constitution ‘ s bull sheathe is actually lay stern to bow from the keel astir to the waterline. In the foreground, Paul Revere, whose rolling mill supplied the copper in 1803, is shown seat, speaking to Commodore Edward Preble and his wife, Mary. Like Hoffbauer, Ripley besides had a fanciful claim on historic dress, showing possibly the influence of the Colonial Revival apparent motion during his early years of analyze .

Repairs: 1833-1878

An anonymously engrave print of Constitution appeared in volume I of the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, printed in 1835. This is the first contemporaneous nineteenth-century exemplification of the ship in our choice of artwork and is more in the region of coverage than artistic interpretation of an event. In this print, Constitution, with the first Andrew Jackson figurehead on its bow, is shown moored off the Charlestown Navy Yard in June 1834, after having spent one year in dry dock. The magazine article accompanying the prototype recapitulates Constitution ‘ s triumphant battle history and concludes with the follow :

“ [ Constitution ] was…placed in average at the Navy Yard, Charlestown, where she lay until June 24th, 1833, when she was taken into the Dry Dock, which had been barely completed–amid the boom of cannons and the huzzas of the multitude .
In the Dry Dock she received a thorough rectify ; and on the 21st of June, 1834, was taken out–a beautiful hull, stronger if possible than when she first dipped her keel in the ocean ’ mho waves, and as ready to meet the foe, as when she lay before the batteries of Tripoli, hurling her boom and her balls of death, against the enemies of exemption and of man .
The [ engraved photographic print ] is a truthful theatrical performance of the Constitution, as she was moored, between the United States 74 ’ s Columbus and Independence…
well may we rate the relics of this old favored of the nation and of the united states navy ; which, in the forms of canes, snuff-boxes and ornaments of assorted kinds, are now scattered far and wide in every land… ”

even in a strip down state exhibiting its exist oak skeletal system, Constitution was newsworthy. Charles Mente, ( 1857-1933 ), an illustrator for Harper ’ sulfur Weekly, captured the aged frigate as it sat in a sectional bobtail at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in the spring of 1875. Mente ’ randomness exemplification provides the viewer with a feel of scale by including three figures at the base of the dock. He besides chose a slenderly elevated vantage point so that the viewer gains a full perspective of the scene. interestingly, the example ’ s caption states that Mente ’ mho persona is based on a photograph. We barely then happen to have a similar photograph, shown below, though we can not confirm that this is the demand photograph from which Mente worked .

This 1874 photograph, while about identical to Mente ’ s illustration, provides a close and lower view of the ship in the sectional dock. The most remarkable view of both the example and the photograph is that the viewer can easily see Constitution ‘ s “ ironsides, ” that is, the dense, closely spaced live oak frame. This rare sight of Constitution ‘ second inning is likely what inspired Charles Mente to document this moment in the ship ’ second history .

Receiving Ship: 1882-1897

This USN Naval Constructor ’ mho plan, dated June 1883, of USS Constitution is one example of a literal render of the ship ’ randomness shape at the end of its farseeing united states navy career. After Constitution ‘ s death sail in the fall of 1881, the ship was stripped of all valuable equipment and finally towed to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, there to be turned into a receiving ship. While some may consider Constitution ‘ s years at Portsmouth to be the nadir of its being, artists, in fact, came to the shores of the Piscataqua River between 1883 and 1897 to capture the ship in its bleached glory .

George Savary Wasson ( 1855-1932 ), a native of Groveland, Massachusetts, was an artist who specialized in marine paintings. After settling in Kittery Point, Maine near the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Wasson, like so many other artists, was attracted to the ships and computer architecture of the waterfront. He completed this small oil painting of Constitution in 1893, possibly as a memento to sell to the burgeoning tourist population .
Constitution spent its receiving transport career moored off a large pier at Portsmouth. The pier was noted for the Santee shiphouse, an enormous construct where the frigate Santee ‘ s stagger was laid down in 1820. The shiphouse appears in the painting precisely behind Constitution. Although Wasson ’ s position of “ Old Ironsides ” is slenderly warped and the cutwater is out of scale, he has rendered other details of the transport fairly accurately. Note the two smoke stacks for stoves, the lightweight sweep carriage, and the porch built above the grim barely below the roofline .

Hendricks A. Hallett ( 1847-1921 ), a Charlestown, Massachusetts artist, specialized in marine and historic paintings. This bucolic watercolor captures a wide perspective of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard waterfront, with “ Old Ironsides ” floating in the center background. Hallett measuredly focused the viewer ’ s eye on Constitution by angling the Piscataqua River gundalow ‘ mho single voyage toward the ship. He besides silhouetted Constitution ‘ s buff-colored hull against the brilliantly Santee transport house immediately behind .
When purchased in 2001, this painting was the first tinge artwork in the USS Constitution Museum ’ s collection to depict Constitution as a receiving transport. Hallett ’ mho careful and accurate choice of colors confirmed for the Museum staff that the ship had been painted a fan color at that time and not “ battleship grey ” as many had previously assumed .
Learn about more aesthetic depictions of USS Constitution ‘ second restorations in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including a paint of the ship ’ s foremost on-key restitution in 1906-1907, in Part II .
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The action that is the discipline of this blog article has been financed in part with Federal funds from the National Maritime Heritage Grant plan, administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, through the Massachusetts Historical Commission, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin, Chairman. however, the contents and opinions do not inevitably reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior, or the Massachusetts Historical Commission, nor does the citation of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation by the Department of the Interior, or the Massachusetts Historical Commission .

The Author(s)

Margherita M. Desy
Historian, Naval History & Heritage Command Margherita M. Desy is the historian for USS Constitution at Naval History and Heritage Command Detachment Boston.

Kate Monea
Manager of Curatorial Affairs, USS Constitution Museum Kate Monea is the Manager of Curatorial Affairs at the USS Constitution Museum .

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Category : Maritime