Stock No: 10076

An historically interesting oil painting on board showing a captured 'Three Masted Frigate Under Sail At Sea' in the early 19th century. Well painted with realistic movement of the ship and the sea, it is signed with monogram on reverse & part of a London art galleries label.The interesting feature is that the Red Ensign is carried upside down at the stern in humiliation, indicating it is a captured British vessel, in this case by the post revolution French Navy whose tricolour flys at the Mainmast.. Circa 1871.

NOTES : "THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN "...See second image....A 17th century English ballad. Tradition has it that when Lord Cornwallis surrendered at the Siege of Yorktown (1781) to the Colonists in the War of Indpendance the British miltary band played this tune....The second image shows another painting, not on offer, depictiong the US Columbus of the Continental later the US Navy with a captured small British Brigantine /merhcantman, the Lord Lifford 1776 with the Red Ensign upside down. The Columbus flys the Grand Union flag of the British East India Company, with the Union flag in the top corner and stripes…which was the first flag of the US after indpendance later replaced by the Stars & Stripes.The Captain, John Paul Jones was a Scot, founder of the US Navy.

Research so far has shown that the signature CHARLES H MOORE,on the reverse is probably not that of this artist, an American, who left a promising career as a painter to become among the first art historians at an academic institution in the United States at Princeton University. He died in Hampshire , England in the early 20th century

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