In the center of Lane’s composition a steamship chugs into view, its white hull gleaming in the sun. An array of different vessels surrounds the steamer, including a massive transatlantic packet ship and its tugboat at left; a smaller coastal sloop just right of center; and a clipper, its bright sails unfurled to dry. Lane’s picture offers a visual inventory of Boston’s shipping capabilities at midcentury.

Few artists of the era were as well-versed in seafaring life as Lane. The son of a sailmaker, he spent most of his life in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he specialized in marine painting. During the 1850s, he completed several seascapes of Boston Harbor, a major center of oceanic trade. These pictures celebrated the region amid mounting sectional tensions over slavery, with Boston’s bustling harbor symbolizing the commercial and technological might of the North.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023).