Lot 79: Victor Charles Edouard Adam (French, 1868-1938) Portrait of the square three-masted ship Quillota leaving the port of Le Havre under full sail unframed

Victor Charles Edouard Adam (French, 1868-1938)
Portrait of the square three-masted ship Quillota leaving the port of Le Havre under full sail
signed and dated 'Victor Adam/1898' (lower right)
oil on canvas
62 x 92cm (24 3/8 x 36 1/4in).
unframed
Footnotes

In the background, the cape of la Hève in Sainte-Adresse can be seen. The flag of the company Bordes and that of Chile can be seen billowing in the wind. This inclusion is certainly a 'wink' from the painter. Quillota is indeed a city in Chile. Quillota was a square three-masted ship of 77 feet, made of steel. She was built in 1876 by the shipyards Robert Steele & Co in Greenock, on behalf of the Company Daniel Adamson under the name of Brahmin. She was resold in 1890 to the ship-owner Duncan McGillivray then resold, in 1893, to the company A.D. Border & Sons who renamed her Quillota. On the 12th November 1901, she was caught in a storm south of Sunderland, and was towed by the English steamer Flying Dragon. Cast off by her tug boat after having dropped her anchors she became stranded and ravaged by the waves, disappeared completely taking seventeen sailors down with her. Five men out of the twenty-two original crew members managed to reach the coast.