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Capture of H.B.M. Frigate Macedonian by U.S. Frigate United States, October 25, 1812
Thomas Chambers (born Whitby, England 1808-died Whitby, England 1869, active USA 1832-1865)
1852
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 34 7/8 x 50 1/4 in. (88.6 x 127.5 cm.)
- Culture
- United States
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Sheldon and Caroline Keck in honor of Elizabeth Broun
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
The rolling waves and swirls of smoke in this painting convey the noise and excitement of battle. To patriotic nineteenth-century Americans, the victory of the frigate United States over the British ship Macedonian in 1812 marked a triumph against British sea power. Off the Canary Islands, Stephen Decatur's ship damaged the Macedonian's hull, dismasted, and captured her. Decatur became an American hero who famously proclaimed "Our country-...may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong."Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006
