Clipper Ship "Nightingale" getting under weigh off the Battery, New York

Marine views and pictures of ships have long appealed to collectors and popular taste. The clipper ship "Nightingale," beautifully designed by Samuel Hanscomb, Jr., was named for the popular Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, nicknamed the "Swedish Nightingale," who had a successful two-year concert tour throughout the United States starting in September 1850. The ship was launched at the Hanscomb Shipyard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1851. Shortly after the ship was sold in Boston, it sailed with passengers "infected with gold fever" to Sydney, Australia, and thereafter it speedily sailed with cargos of tea from Shanghai, China, to London, England -- dubbed "tea and silk" voyages -- often racing other ships to make that journey between 94 and 113 days, which was an impressive record for the day. Nathanial Currier's lithography firm was eager to satisfy the public's desire for pictures of such sleek ships epitomizing prowess in crossing the seas. This image of the ship was created when it stopped in New York City in May 1854; this view shows it proudly sailing in New York Harbor with a background glimpse of Manhattan's Battery Park and Castle Garden, which served as an opera house and theater. The artists cleverly included Castle Garden (also called Castle Clinton), since it was the site of two concerts Jenny Lind gave at the outset of her American tour in 1850.

The ship's later history was not so glorious, however. In 1860, the ship was sent to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where it was sold, and under a Brazilian flag, the ship transported Africans for the slave trade. In April 1861, the "Nightingale" was captured by boats from the "USS Saratoga" off the coast of Africa at Cabinda, Angola; over 900 men, women and children were found chained beneath the decks and rescued. When the "Nightingale" finally made it back to the United States, the US Navy acquired it and re-fitted the ship to transport coal and other supplies to support Union ships in the blockade of the Confederate coast during the American Civil War. In 1865, "Nightingale" was again sold, this time to the Western Union Telegraph Company in San Francisco; the company used it for laying telegraph cable across the Behring Strait.

Nathaniel Currier, whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of hand-colored prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century American life and its history. People eagerly acquired such lithographs featuring picturesque scenery, rural and city views, ships, railroads, portraits, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. As the firm expanded, Nathaniel included his younger brother Charles in the business. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (the firm's accountant since 1852 and Charles's brother-in-law) was made a business partner; subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued until 1907.