File:Ships Through the Ages (5).jpg

English: BPLDC no.: 09_03_000077

Subtitle: Topsail schooner, Enterprise; Brig, Sommers; Old Salem Bark

Creator: King, Frederic Leonard (American painter and illustrator, 1879-1947)

Date created: 1934-1935

General format: oil on canvas

BPL Department: Special Collections, East Boston Branch Library

Dimensions: visible image 22 ½ x 76 in., framed 25 ½ x 79 in.

Description: (left to right)

Old Salem Bark The Bark was a typical packet of the era between the War of 1812 and the day of the clipper ship.

Brig, Sommers A ship that has only two masts, both square-rigged, is a brig, a type of vessel that is now extinct. At one time it was a very popular type for small coasting vessels and was used for coal carrying up to as late as the nineteenth century. The name "brig" is really an abbreviated form of "brigantine." The name brigantine originated in the Mediterranean, where it was applied to a small vessel, lateen-rigged, but intended mainly for rowing.

Topsail schooner, Enterprise The Enterprise was "a little ship with a great record." It was a familiar type of 19th century coasting vessel of 470 tons. It made the passage from London to Calcutta via the Cape in 113 days.

Notes: The description above was written in 1935. Ships Through the Ages, originally four murals painted by Frederic Leonard King between 1934 and 1935, was commissioned as part of the Public Works Art Project for the Jeffries Point Branch of the Boston Public Library. In 1956, the Jeffries Point Branch closed, and each mural was divided into multiple paintings and relocated to the East Boston Branch Library where they are currently on display; however, several sections of the murals are missing.