The clipper 'Surprise'

This painting depicts a port broadside view of the American built and owned clipper ship ‘Surprise’. The vessel is ship-rigged and flies the ensign of the United States with the house flag of A. A. Low & Brother at the main. Several other vessels are visible in the distance, and there is a point of land on the right. The latter represents the Cap de la Heve, a little to the north of the port of Le Havre.

The painting is probably by a member of the Adam family of marine painters from Le Havre (Edmond, Marie Edouard and Victoire Adam). The ‘Surprise’ was built by Samuel Hall at East Boston for A. A. Low & Brother and launched on 5 October 1850. It sailed from Macao with tea on 28 July 1851 and arrived in London on 12 November 1851 passing Brighton on 10 November. Its next voyage terminated at London on 3 November 1852. Both voyages would have placed the ‘Surprise’ in the vicinity of Le Havre, and this painting was presumably made on one of those occasions. The rest of the ship’s voyages were between New York and China/Japan. It was wrecked on Plymouth Rocks, Japan on 4 February 1876.