Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen(American, 1850-1921)The clipper 'Young America' under full sail 55.3 x 90.8cm. (21 3/4 x 35 3/4in.)
Sold for £15,600 inc. premium
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Find your local specialistAntonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (American, 1850-1921)
signed 'Antonio Jacobsen' and dated 1909 (lower right)
oil on board
55.3 x 90.8cm. (21 3/4 x 35 3/4in.)
Footnotes
The extreme clipper ‘Young America’ was christened with the seemingly perfect name, being one of those ships employed to open up the Pacific coast of the United States in the wake of the California Gold Rush of 1849. The last vessel to be designed and built by the great William Webb of New York, she was widely considered to be his crowning achievement when she was launched in 1853. Constructed from the finest materials available, at a massive cost of $140,000, she was registered at 1,961 tons and measured 243 feet in length with a 43 foot beam. Indeed, her lines were so admired by all who saw her that it was said she “was not excelled by anything afloat.”
She was owned initially by the prominent New York merchant George B. Daniels and her size and speed ensured she commanded the highest freight rates and she never lacked cargo throughout her career. Even in an era when many clippers and their captains were household names, she remained a favourite amongst shippers and over the course of twenty return passages from New York to San Francisco she averaged 118 days out and 98 back, both being well below the norm for the time. In 1872-73 she established the record of 82 days from the Golden Gate to New York, the fastest time ever recorded by a cargo-carrying sailing ship on that run. She also established a westbound record passage of 99 days from San Francisco to Liverpool, her other frequent destination, and as the years passed, she could be found in many ports across the Pacific with a wide variety of cargo. Sold out of American registry to Austrian owners in 1883, she was renamed ‘Miroslav’ and adopted the Croatian port of Bakar as her homeport. Despite this, she continued in the trans-Atlantic trade until 1886 when, after leaving Delaware on 17th February, she disappeared without trace and was never heard of again.
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