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Oil on canvas, 49.5 cm x 79.5 cm
The American Confederate schooner rigged paddle steamer 'Banshee I' is shown at sea in a port profile under full steam with all sails furled. The controversial role of the vessel may explain why there is no name or identifying flags included in the painting.
There were two almost identical vessels named 'Banshee', both built for the Anglo-Confederate Trading Company. 'Banshee I' was the first of a number of fast steel-hulled steamers built to beat the blockade of Confederate ports imposed by the Federal Navy. She was completed early in 1863 but had problems. Captain Thomas Taylor described her as a frail vessel 'ill-constructed and ill-engined.' She was captured on her ninth voyage near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in November 1863 and became a Federal vessel. After the war, she was renamed 'J L Smallwood' and carried cattle in the Gulf of Mexico. 'Banshee II' was built in 1864 as a replacement blockade runner with finer lines than her predecessor and some forty feet longer. She also survived the war without mishap.
The painting has generally been thought to portray the earlier vessel. This is likely given that the painting was commissioned by William Quiggin, the builder, who might well have wished to remember the first steel built vessel to cross the Atlantic.
Although placed centrally on the canvas, the long low profile of the vessel makes it an almost subservient element of the picture. The eye is caught by the rough, murky sea and the brilliant sunlight breaking through the dark and brooding storm clouds.