Becalmed off Halfway Rock

Fitz Henry Lane

National Gallery of Art

Two ships and two sailboats, all with full sails, float on a gently rippling body of water in front of a pale pastel-shaded sky in this horizontal painting. A rounded rock projects from the water near the center of the painting in the hazy near distance. One ship with two masts to the left of the rock has three people standing on the port side of the deck, closer to us. Between us and the ship, a man wearing a red shirt and a flat-topped brown hat and with two traps on his rowboat travels toward the ship. Three ships cluster to the right of the rock. Four men and seven wooden barrels are aboard a three-masted sailboat with two dinghies trailing behind. To our right is a smaller sailboat with four men gathered in the stern. The third vessel on this side has at least two masts with multiple sails. The rigging of all the ships is delicately outlined against the sky, which is tinged with pale yellow and lavender purple. The low sun behind the sails of the first ship creates a golden glow around the rock and along the horizon, which comes just over a quarter of the way up this painting. The water becomes silvery gray blended with light brown along the bottom edge of the composition. A band of hazy, violet clouds line the low horizon where more white boats sail in the far distance. The artist signed and dated in lower right corner, “F.H.Lane. 1860.”