December 10-13, 2024 Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/10/2024
Watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper, 21 ½ x 29 inches (view), inscribed on the upper right in the artist’s hand, "U.S. Ship Concord Entering the Harbour of Portsmouth, N.H. From a three year's cruise in the Mediterranean. By Jacob Mull Sailing Master General, U.S. Navy"
The USS Concord was a three-masted, sloop-of-war of the United States Navy, launched on 24 September 1828 from the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine. The Concord was commissioned on 7 May 1830 with a crew of 190 men and placed under the command of Commodore Matthew C. Perry. She saw service as part of the Mediterranean Squadron from 22 April 1830 to 10 December 1832. Under Perry's command the Concord was used to transport the US envoy John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia, to the Imperial Russian court at St. Petersburg in 1832. Sailing Master Mull’s folky, but accurate rendering depicts the Concord on her return to home port after this three-year, maiden voyage. Fort Constitution and Newcastle are seen in lower right corner with "Newcastle" written above. Depicting not only an event, the drawing also serves as a sail plan and draught of the ship as she then appeared with a scale below, running its full length. Jacob Mull was born in Baltimore in 1781 and from 1804 appears in city directories listed first as a sea captain and later, as a naval officer. He entered the US Navy as a Sailing Master in 1809, serving honorably and with merit in that capacity until he retired with a pension in 1849. He died in Boston on 29 January 1851 and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge.