Lot 567: Lai Fong of Calcutta (fl.1890-1910)

The four-masted barque, Milton Stuart at sea signed, inscribed and indistinctly dated 'Lai Fong/Calcutta9.[?]' (lower right) oil on canvas 10 x 16 in. (25.5 x 40.7 cm.) NOTES The four-masted steel barque Milton Stuart was built for the Liverpool company of the same name by Swan, Hunter at Newcastle in 1892. Registered in Liverpool at 3,178 tons gross and measuring 327 feet in length with a 461/2 foot beam, she only sailed under the Red Ensign until 1899 when she was sold to G.J.H. Siemers of Hamburg. Renamed Thekla to replace another vessel of that name lost the previous year, she proved a very successful addition to Siemers' fleet which operated her until she ran ashore and was wrecked on 6 th July 1911 on Cape San Juan, Staten Island, off the south-eastern tip of Argentina. Six of her crew were lost almost at once when one of her boats capsized and the remaining survivors were eventually rescued after two months on the bleak rocks of Staten Island in appalling winter weather.