The Wreck of the Reliance (November 12, 1842)
November 1, 1843
Medium
Steel engraving colored with wood-blocks in oil-based inks on paper
Dimensions
Image: 30 × 41.5 cm (11 13/16 × 16 3/8 in.); Sheet: 30.5 × 42 cm (12 1/16 × 16 9/16 in.)
Classification
wood engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
59487
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
George Baxter—known as “The Picture Printer”— made technically innovative work that often portrayed important mid-19th-century historical events. He based this dramatic shipwreck tableau on the description given by the only English survivor of a shipwrecked tea-merchant ship, the Reliance. Of the 116 passengers, only seven survived. Baxter used about 8 color blocks for this print, in addition to the intaglio “key,” exemplifying the intricacy of his procedure. This work attests to his ability to ...