£500 - £700
δ WILFRED KNOX (R. MACGREGOR) (BRITISH, 1884-1966)
The ‘emigrant clipper’ 'Royal Family' running before the wind under full sail
Signed 'R. Macgregor' (lower left)
Oil on canvas
23¼ x 35¼in. (59 x 89.5cm.)
Built at St. John, New Brunswick, in 1862 for Fernic Brothers of Liverpool, the Royal Family was a handsome and well-appointed vessel of 1,750 tons sporting a massive full ship rig. Despite her enormous spread of sail, she is usually classed as one of the so-called ‘emigrant clippers’ which dominated the Australian and New Zealand trade in the third quarter of the nineteenth century and could accommodate 20 cabin and 400 steerage passengers. It is recorded that she sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne on two occasions, but her career proved a short one when she was wrecked on the Rufero Reef in the Maldives in 1868.
wax relined, scattered retouching to left-hand margin and throughout picture
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