“The Regatta of the New York Yacht Club”

A beautifully hand colored and very detailed 19th century wood engraving of the annual regatta that took place on Thursday, June 7, 1860.  The sail boats shown and identified in the image are “Restless”, “Haze”, “Alpha”, “Rebecca”, “Narragansett”, “Favorita” and “Rowena.”  In the time before photographs were used in newspapers, some of the best artists of the period made their bread and butter creating engravings such as this one.

As the accompanying text states, “the time our artist has chosen for his sketch is the passing of the Owl’s Head stake-boat.”  The extensive text provides enormous detail about the owner’s construction of the boats, and allowance of time. There are 4 paragraphs of text with the opening phrases setting the stage for the rest of the paragraph. They begin 1) “The day opened gloomily… 2) The scene at Robbin’s Reef was quite exciting. 3) “The homestretch was by far the most interesting part…” 4) ‘”From this time until the arrival at the stakeboat...”

 
Hand colored wood engraving.
11 1/2 x 16 inches, sheet.
Excellent condition.
 

The print includes interesting text concerning the details of the race. The purchaser could chose to mat the print in such a way as to reveal this information.