Skip to content

Home
Search
Your album
Learn more

Images

Getting Out One of the Great Buoys: The Deck of the Great Eastern Looking From the Forecastle

Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts | CC0 1.0

Start Zooming Stop Zooming

Current search
Add To Album

Date

1865-1866

Artist

Robert Charles Dudley (1826-1909)

Collection

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Image Link

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/383837

Description

One of the 19th century's great technological achievements was to lay a telegraphic cable beneath the Atlantic, allowing messages to speed back and forth between North America and Europe in minutes, rather than ten or twelve days by steamer. An initially successful attempt in 1858, led by Cyrus W. Field and financed by the Atlantic Telegraph Company, failed after three weeks. Two working cables were finally laid in July and September 1866, the result of repeated efforts by the indefatigable Field, a cadre of engineers, technicians, and sailors, two groups of financial backers, and significant help from the British and United States navies. Dudley documented the process in a series of watercolors and oils, this example showing the deck of the Great Eastern with great buoys hanging near the bow. These were essential to the campaign made to retrieve the lost 1865 cable between August 8 and September 2, 1866. In 1892 Field donated art works by Dudley, commemorative medals, memorabilia, and specimens of cable to the Museum. Medium: watercolor over graphite with touches of gouache.

Image Licence

CC0 1.0

Image Credit

Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts

Location

Atlantic Ocean

Medium

Tags

Industries
People
Professions
Ships
Technology
Tools

Category

Industries & Professions

Glossary
Search tips

© 2024 Watercolour World | Technology by The Museum Platform

© 2024 Watercolour World | Technology by The Museum Platform