Engraver and artist unknown. [Untitled: Ships at Sea]
CAT 212. Engraver, artist, and date unknown. [Untitled: Ships at Sea.] A framed print from Herman Melville’s personal collection of art, as yet unidentified. Detail of photograph from Eleanor Melville Metcalf’s Martha’s Vineyard home in 1929. Memorial Room, Berkshire Athenaeum.
The above image is a detail from a photograph showing three framed prints from Herman Melville personal collection being preserved in the Martha’s Vineyard home of his granddaughter Eleanor Melville Metcalf in 1929 (fig. 1 below).
Fig. 1. Photograph of three framed prints from Herman Melville’s collection in Martha’s Vineyard of his granddaughter Eleanor Melville Metcalf that was reproduced in the New Bedford Standard on August 11, 1929. Melville Memorial Room, Berkshire Athenaeum.
We have identified the framed seascape directly over the fireplace as James Fittler’s engraving of Willem van de Velde the Younger’s A Brisk Gale (CAT 210). The framed image of ancient ruins to the right of the fireplace is Georg Christoph Killian’s etching entitled Palatium Romanum vertustate collapsum (CAT no. to be assigned). The unidentified seascape to the left of the fireplace resembles van de Velde’s A Brisk Gale in subject, style, and period of military history.
We will complete this catalog entry after we are able to identify the print to the left of the fireplace. We welcome information from anyone who can recognize the image.