Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen (1850–1921)
SS “Commonwealth,” 1902

Oil on canvas McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Gift of Jacqueline McMullen, 2006.4

Nancy Netzer
Inaugural Robert L. and Judith T. Winston Director, McMullen Museum and Professor, Art History

Born in Denmark, Antonio Jacobsen settled in 1873 in Union City, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Soon after his arrival, he started sketching ships in nearby New York Harbor. Impressed by his precise renderings, owners and captains began commissioning him to paint “portraits” of their ships docked in the harbor. As his reputation grew, Jacobsen completed more than six thousand paintings that document the increasing size and gradual transition of merchant sailing ships into steamers. John McMullen (1918–2005), benefactor with his wife Jacqueline of this Museum, was a naval engineer and the owner of Norton Lilly, a leading ship agency company and operator of merchant navy ships. He assembled one of the largest private collections of Jacobsen’s paintings, to this work and the nearby SS “Glenogle” belonged.

The SS Commonwealth was built for the Dominion Line in 1900 by Harland and Wolff in Belfast to carry passengers, including many immigrants in steerage, between Liverpool and Boston in seven days. The passenger liner for 1,300 boasted luxurious first-class accommodations. Jacobsen paints the steamer flying the American flag, the British Red Ensign, and the Dominion Line pennant.