Down the China Sea, Tea Clipper Themopylae

gouache, 12 1/2" x 19"

$5,000

The painting depicts the British tea clipper Thermopylae running before the wind as she heads down the China Sea in early July, 1871.  Captain Kemball has the ship under stunsails on the fore and main masts to capture as much of the wind as possible.  The afternoon sun sparkles off the water as the ship passes several Chinese ocean-going junks.  On this voyage Thermopylae departed Shanghai on June 22nd and arrived in London on October 6th, making a passage of 106 days which was the second best of all the clippers racing home that season.

The Thermopylae was designed by Bernard Weymouth and built in 1868.  Her tea passages to and from the Far East were legendary and record-setting.  She went into the wool trade in the mid-1870s where her passages from Australia to England weren't as quick.  In the 1890s she had new owners who used her in the Canadian lumber business.  In 1896 she was sold to the Portuguese as a training ship and she was renamed  the Pedro Nunes.  She was sunk under Naval Honors in 1907 by the Portuguese.