One could be excused for not thinking of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts as “maritime.” But one of its lower-level galleries displays ship models, half-hulls, scrimshaw, and more nautical artifacts; additionally, scattered throughout the new Art of the Americas wing is a rich collection of maritime paintings by some of the best-known 19th-century American artists.
Start on the second floor, which houses most of the nautical paintings. Gallery 235 displays work by Fitz Hugh Lane and Martin Johnson Heade. Lane, a maritime artist active between 1840 and 1865, had a remarkable ability to capture light, from the translucent quality of Boston Harbor, Sunset (1853) to the dawn colors of a calm and crystal-clear Owl’s Head, Penobscot Bay (1862). His work was so accurate that a shipwright could almost have built a vessel based on one of his renderings.
The five works by Heade include Approaching Storm: Beach Near Newport (ca. 1861-62), portraying the white triangle of a schooner’s sail against a threatening black sky. The boat seems to run from the storm while foaming waves break on a beach of sand and rocks in the foreground.
Gallery 234 showcases 13 of Winslow Homer’s paintings, nine of which have maritime themes. Plan to spend a bit of time with The Fog Warning (1885). A doryman, his boat laden with halibut, looks apprehensively over his shoulder at gathering fog and dark over a restless sea. At the horizon, a schooner sails as if to escape the coming weather.
Beacon Rock: Newport (1863) will be a familiar scene to New England sailors. Painted by John Frederick Kensett, the canvas in Gallery 236 captures sparkling water, blue sky, a schooner in the foreground, and Fort Adams in the distance.
The German-born artist Albert Bierstadt is best known for panoramic landscapes of the American West. In 1889 he was traveling on the paddlewheel schooner Ancon in Alaska when the vessel ran aground because of a strong tide. In Gallery 236, the artist’s small painting shows the forlorn ship trapped between a dark sky and sea; only the covers on the useless paddlewheels shine yellow, like hope sinking with the ship in this gloomy scene of loss.
Back on the first floor, after pausing to admire John Singleton Copley’s famous 1768 portrait of a thoughtful Paul Revere seated at a polished mahogany desk, look in the case immediately behind the painting. There you will find a silver admiralty oar (ca. 1740), the symbol of the authority of the high court of admiralty of Boston’s colonial days. The oar is about 18 inches long and has a fouled anchor engraved on the blade.
Farther along the first floor, in the Kristin and Roger Servison Gallery, past Thomas Sully’s enormous painting of General George Washington and his troops crossing the Delaware River (Passage of the Delaware, 1819), you’ll find two excellent paintings of U.S. frigates in action during the War of 1812, both by Thomas Birch. One depicts the United States defeating the Macedonian, the other shows the Constitution’s victory over the Guerriere (1813).
Nicknamed “Jaws” by schoolchildren who visit Gallery 128, John Singleton Copley’s large painting Watson and the Shark (1778) interprets the 1749 shark attack in Havana Harbor, Cuba, of Brook Watson. The 14-year-old orphan, who crewed on board a merchant ship, had decided to go for a swim. The painting shows shipmates desperately trying to reach him while the naked boy appears to drown in clear swells. In reality, Watson lost his leg but survived the attack. The accurate background includes British ships and Morro Castle.
The George Putnam Gallery on the lower level offers dockyard models from England, Venice, and The Netherlands, including the splendid plank-on-frame model of the Dutch East Indiaman Valkenisse (1717). Be sure to open the many drawers lining one side of the room, where you’ll discover whalers’ scrimshaw, a fine backstaff made by Clark Elliot of New London, Connecticut, in 1765, and the half-hull model used by the great clipper-ship builder Donald McKay when he constructed the Great Republic in 1853.
Located near Boston’s Fenway Park, the Museum of Fine Arts offers several package deals through nearby hotels.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
465 Huntington Ave.Boston, Mass. 02115
(617) 267-9300
Open daily after 1000
Admission free for members and those under 17, $18 seniors and students 18 and older, $20 adults. www.mfa.org