Art Collection

Art

Like explorers of a bygone era, the owners of Northern Sun have amassed their own collection of artwork, nautical antiquities and rugs from around the world. These treasures are exhibited throughout the yacht.

The artworks depict shipping through the ages from the clipper ships of the early 19th century to mid-20th century passenger liners. Many of the carpets on the vessel date from the early and mid-20th century and are fine examples of the craftsmanship of the traditional rug weavers of the Middle East.

Artist unknown
The Barque Windermere
c.1895

windemerePainted by a Chinese artist, probably working in a studio in Hong Kong. The four-masted steel barque Windermere was built in 1892 by T.R. Oswald at Milford Haven. Registered at 3,050 tons gross (2,999 net), she measured 320 feet in length with a 43 foot beam. First owned by Fisher & Sprott, she was sold to Rickmers of Bremerhaven in 1899 and renamed Paul Rickmers; her new career proved a short one however, and she was reported “missing” in 1902.

Christopher James Ward
Tidal Sails
2007

Tidal SailsChristopher Ward is a maritime and landscape painter from New Castle, New Hampshire, who was born October 17, 1968. Ward expresses a rich shimmer and fine detail in his work, which is fresh and original in its genre. Ward’s inspiration for art and the sea developed over the summers spent with his artist mother in Cape Split, Maine. Ward captures his initial perspective on a location while the finished painting will maintain the freshness of his original inspiration, presenting an accurately detailed piece of maritime history.

John A. English
The American Schooner Admiral Dewey

Admiral deweyLittle is known about English other than that he painted in America during the 20th century. Admiral Dewey a 32 meter wooden hull, scow schooner built in 1898 in Detroit, Michigan.

Antonio Jacobsen
The Westerland

westerlandAntonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (November 2, 1850 – February 2, 1921) was a Danish-born American maritime artist known as the “Audubon of Steam Vessels”.

Jacobsen studied at the Royal Academy of Design before heading to the United States of America in 1873 and settling near the Hudson River in West Hoboken, New Jersey. There Jacobsen started his career by painting ships on safes and his reputation grew from there. Ship owners and sea captains commissioned his work for portraits of their ships, at a fee of around five dollars, which in those days was considered a low fee for such works. It is reported that Jacobsen painted more than 6,000 portraits of sail and steam vessels, making him “the most prolific of marine artists”.

George Wassen
Maine Coastal Scene

coastal sceneGeorge Savary Wasson was an American maritime artist born in 1855 and died on April 28, 1932. In addition to being a painter, Wasson was also a novelist and boat builder. Wasson’s novels which he illustrated captured the New England dialect used in southern Maine at the turn of the century.

Lai Fong
Australian Wool Clipper
c.1880

Aust wool clipperLai Fong was an Indian-Chinese artist who lived and worked in Calcutta, India. Lai Fong was a leading maritime artist of the 19th century, and was renowned for capturing the ship’s every detail and for the realistic accuracy with which he replicated the ocean. This talent was rarely found in Chinese artists of the era.

Lai Fong
An English three masted clipper ship
c.1880

An english 3 mast clipperThe ship is flying the flag of Douglas Lapraik & Co. Douglas Lapraik, a Scotsman, arrived in Hong Kong in 1843. After various jobs and businesses including watchmaking, he set up the shipping company of Douglas Lapraik & Co. in 1870. He commissioned Lai Fong to paint this image of a clipper ship of his fleet.

Edward E Arnold
Schooner H P Metcalf

c.1859

metcalfBorn at Heilbronn, Wurttemberg, in the early nineteenth century, Edward Everard Arnold had settled in New Orleans by 1850 and lived there until his death in 1866. Edward Arnold promoted himself as a lithographer, “fancy painter”, sign painter, artist, and painter of portrait, landscape, and marine subjects.

Unknown Artist
The American Steamship Washington

c.1920

washingtom glassThe Steamship Washington is painted in the American folk art style called reverse painting on glass. The Steamship Washington was the first of a new line of steam vessels to run between New York and Bremen around the year 1847. Her first passage was an anticipated race with the Britannia, a race she unfortunately lost by two days due to the failure of the steam engine.

Artist unknown
County of Flint
Chinese School c.1875

Country of flint“China Trade” is the name given to paintings and pictures linked to the Far East in the period 1700 to 1950. These comprised paintings by Western artists who traveled to the East and also by Chinese artists who adapted their style to a Western manner for the merchants and ships’ officers who visited the China Coast.

E.P. Corin
The Thames at Battersea
c.1960

the thames on battersea

Chinese artist
The Clipper William Fruing off the China Coast

c.1870

clipper william furing 1

Chinese artist
Hong Kong and Victoria Peak
c.1855

A detailed scene of Victoria Peak with the harbor below. The busy international trade between the port of Hong Kong and western nations is seen in the multiple ships with international flags in the harbor as well as the hong warehouses along the shore. With excellent use of color and brushwork, particularly in the sky, and fine detail throughout, this is a great example of paintings for the China Trade.

Jih-E Peng
Nudes 1 & 2

Taiwanese photographer Jih-E Peng’s “Nude 1” was an Official Selection of the 2009 International Photography Awards.

Ships’ models

Builders Dockyard Ship Model of the Thames River Steamer Dolphine
United Kingdom
c.1870

thames ferry

S.Y. Vedette Model

A lifelike model of the steam yacht Vedette, built originally as Virginia in 1899 as a commercial vessel was later acquired by Frederick W. Vanderbilt of the Vanderbilt family, who changed her name. Throughout WWI, Vedette was leased to the United States Navy and used as a patrol vessel in the Atlantic Ocean. During her service Vedette was involved in rescuing survivors at sea and attacking a German U-Boat. The vessel served her time honorably and after the war was decommissioned and handed back to her previous owner. Vanderbilt continued to own Vedette for a number of years until she sank at her mooring in the boat basin in Brooklyn in 1925.

S.S Shinyo Maru

An impressive 12-foot model of S.S. Shinyo Maru a luxury passenger liner built in 1911 by Mitsubishi Dockyard & Engine works, Nagasaki Japan. Her length was 558 ft (170m), beam 61.9 ft (18.9m), tonnage 13,425 GRT and top speed 21 knots. The liner had accommodation for 275 first class, 75 second class and 800 steerage passengers. Shinyo Maru was powered by thirteen Scotch boilers providing steam for three sets of Parsons turbines for 17,000 horse power. She was built specifically for the trans Pacific liner route of Hong Kong to San Francisco for the Toyo Kisen Kaisha Steamship company. Shinyo Maru worked this route with her sistership until being laid up in 1932 and finally scrapped in 1936.

Northern Sun’s Ship’s Clock

ship clockThe Ship’s Clock will ring a bell on every half-hour in the style of the standard ship’s clock. That standard has its roots in centuries of sailing ships around the world where clocks were impractical and is still used in present-day navies. It is based on four-hour watches: each watch lasted four hours, starting at the hours of 12, 4, and 8 (am or pm). Each half-hour during a watch was marked by a single bell and each hour by a double bell. For example, starting at 12 o’clock:

  • 12:30 1 bell
  • 1:00 2 bells (as one double bell)
  • 1:30 3 bells (as one double + one single bell)
  • 2:00 4 bells (two double bells)
  • 2:30 5 bells (two doubles + one single bell)
  • 3:00 6 bells (three double bells)
  • 3:30 7 bells (one double + one single bell)
  • 4:00 8 bells (four double bells)

At the end of this cycle, the pattern is repeated.