New York pilot schooners were typically painted black to mask earned blemishes as they aged but were sometimes initially painted white when launched. In Elisha Taylor Baker’s dramatic yet subtle painting, the artist captures a moment in the infancy of the 1876-built Centennial.
Michael Florio, founder and director of Maritime Arts Gallery in Rowayton, Connecticut, previously had this painting of Centennial in his collection before selling it about 15 years ago. He regards it as one of Baker’s best, highlighting the painting’s composition and use of artificial light.
“I’d consider this one of his masterpieces,” Florio says. “It’s a very beautiful painting; it’s luminous, and the blue sky has these pinkish clouds. The clouds are a wonderful pink. American luminous paintings might have the whole sea lit up with light. In this particular painting, you can see patches of light at the bow and the stern, which kind of frames the boat in a magical light. It sounds dramatic, but it’s almost like an angel flying through the sky.”
Centennial, considered to be the fastest boat of her fleet in 1885, is painted carrying her three lower sails and a flying jib across the moody, darkened waters of Lower New York Harbor. Of note are the schooner’s two yawl boats stowed keel-up and amidships, low-mounted booms and tiller steering.
Pilot schooners were designed for speed and small crews. Despite her 76 feet length overall, 26 feet of beam and 60 tons of displacement, Centennial is depicted with just three crew on deck, including the helmsman.This schooner was designed by naval architect Dennison J. Lawlor of Chelsea, Massachusetts, and built by East Boston’s Robert Crosbie. She survived the Great Blizzard of 1888, with her crew seeking shelter near the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, where Mrs. W.W. Stewart fed and housed the men. By 1898, Centennial was the last sailing pilot boat of her fleet. She was later sold to parties in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Centennial and other similar vessels were used to hastily carry temporary captains, known as pilots, out to incoming ships entering the harbor. Pilot schooners needed to be fast because each one competed for the business of incoming ships. “They would launch the skiff, and they would row from the schooner to the ship,” Florio says. “The ship would lower a Jacobs ladder, and from the rowboat the pilot would clamber up the side of the ship on this rope ladder. It was dangerous because the ship wouldn’t stop.”
Born in 1827 in New York City to a fish-merchant father who also owned a boat and was a former captain, the self-taught artist first established a studio in Downtown Manhattan.
Baker, the artist, was known primarily for his ship portraits and occasionally for his landscapes. His work can be seen in various museums, including Mystic Seaport. Baker died in Orange, Connecticut, in 1890.
February 2025
