Beyond a Cincinnati Legacy: The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Fleischmann III, Part I

Clipper Ship L. Schepp in Rough Seas
oil on board
unsigned
13 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches.

The L. Schepp, named after a New York manufacturer of chocolate and cocoa, was more commonly referred to as the "Cocoanut King." She was launched at Kennebunkport, Maine in September of 1878, captained by Moses Maling. Twice sold by the 1890s, the L. Schepp remained primarily engaged in trade with San Francisco, before expanding her each to China, Japan, and the East Indies, her outward cargoes mostly comprising case oil. On February 2, 1902, during a voyage from Hong Kong to New York, she ran ashore off the coast of Long Island as a result of a strong westerly gale with intermittent snow. No lives were lost, but the hull of the vessel was badly damaged, and nearly all the cargo was lost after being towed, half full of water, to New York. Condemned and sold, the L. Schepp was converted to a coal barge and renamed White Band. In this capacity, her service continued until 1908.

Antonio Jacobsen painted at least two other known views of the L. Schepp, each depicting the ship in heavy weather with damaged rigging. One such iteration, American Ship "L. Schepp" in a Typhoon off Bellona Reef, New Caledonia, nearly twice the size of this painting, was held privately by Bert Kutakof of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii until 1949, when it privately changed hands. The work was offered as Lot 51 in Sotheby's American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture auction in 2003, and later as Lot 747 in Eldred's Americana auction in 2006. The painting offered here has been in the possession of the Fleischmann family since at least 1985 per correspondence with the late Harold Sniffen, Curator Emeritus of the Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia.