- 46
American School 19th Century
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Description
- American School
- Portrait of Captain William Boerum of the Constitution
- Oil on canvas
- 29 1/2 in. by 32 1/2 in.
Painted circa 1820; in a period giltwood and gesso acanthus leaf frame.
Although specific confirmed biographical information is scarce, Captain William Boerum is most likely William Nicholas Boerum, born in New York, 23 June 1800, son of Jacob Boerum (b. 1761-d. 1805) of Brooklyn, Kings County, New York and Hannah Thorn of Fishkill, Dutchess County, New York.
In the background of the portrait one can make out the dim outline of Castle Garden, New York Harbor.
Constitution, 44-gun frigate, the most famous vessel in the history of the U.S. navy, was launched at Boston in 1797. She served in the undeclared naval war with FRANCE, and in the TRIPOLITAN war. While flagship of Isaac Hill in the War of 1812, she defeated the British frigate Gurriere, thus bolstering a sagging national morale, and soon after, when she destroyed the JAVA in a duel off the coast of Brazil (under the command of William Bainbridge), the performance earned for her the sobriquet ‘Old Ironsides.’ Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poem of that named roused popular sentiment to prevent her being dismantled in 1830, and she later served as a training ship. Since 1925, rebuilt by subscription, she has been berthed as a historic relic at Boston. She is the oldest vessel in the U.S. Navy still in commission.
Excerpted from the Oxford Companion to American History, Oxford University Press, New York, 1966.
Although specific confirmed biographical information is scarce, Captain William Boerum is most likely William Nicholas Boerum, born in New York, 23 June 1800, son of Jacob Boerum (b. 1761-d. 1805) of Brooklyn, Kings County, New York and Hannah Thorn of Fishkill, Dutchess County, New York.
In the background of the portrait one can make out the dim outline of Castle Garden, New York Harbor.
Constitution, 44-gun frigate, the most famous vessel in the history of the U.S. navy, was launched at Boston in 1797. She served in the undeclared naval war with FRANCE, and in the TRIPOLITAN war. While flagship of Isaac Hill in the War of 1812, she defeated the British frigate Gurriere, thus bolstering a sagging national morale, and soon after, when she destroyed the JAVA in a duel off the coast of Brazil (under the command of William Bainbridge), the performance earned for her the sobriquet ‘Old Ironsides.’ Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poem of that named roused popular sentiment to prevent her being dismantled in 1830, and she later served as a training ship. Since 1925, rebuilt by subscription, she has been berthed as a historic relic at Boston. She is the oldest vessel in the U.S. Navy still in commission.
Excerpted from the Oxford Companion to American History, Oxford University Press, New York, 1966.
Provenance
Marine Arts, Salem, Massachusetts