View Looking Aft from the Port Paddle-box on the Deck of the Great Eastern: Showing the Trough for the Cable, etc.
1865–66
Medium
Watercolor with touches of gouache (bodycolor)
Dimensions
Sheet: 8 15/16 x 6 1/4 in. (22.7 x 15.9 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Cyrus W. Field, 1892
Accession Number
92.10.89
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step aboard the colossal *Great Eastern*, the largest ship of its time, through Robert Charles Dudley's precise 1865–66 watercolor *View Looking Aft from Port Paddle-box on the of the Great Eastern: Showing the Trough for Cable, etc.* Perched high on the port paddle-box, this intimate deck view captures the trough where the revolutionary transatlantic telegraph cable was coiled and fed into the ocean—a feat of engineering that shrank the world. Dudley, an artist who chronicled the ship's cable-laying voyages, documented these historic expeditions backed by promoter Cyrus W. Field, whose 1892 gift brought this work to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The *Great Eastern*'s 1865–66 efforts culminated in the first successful transatlantic cable in 1866, enabling near-instant communication between continents and heralding the telegraph age. Rendered in delicate watercolor heightened with gouache for vivid opacity, the 8 15/16 × 6 1/4-inch sheet showcases Dudley's skill in conveying industrial scale and maritime bustle. A treasured print in the Met's Drawings and Prints collection, it evokes the thrill of 19th-century innovation.
About the Artist
Robert Charles Dudley · 1813–1913
British, 1826–1909