Posner Maritime Art Collection
SS Caronia
by W. Bennett
Oil on canvas, 12” x 18”
This painting is labeled “SS Caronia” and signed “W. Bennett 1905” on the lower right. Further information on W. Bennett was not found in artist’s dictionaries that fit the 1905 period. He may have been an amateur, or self taught. Though a nice painting, there are details that border on naïve: note the stylized wave pattern. Since it is signed in the early 1900s it is probably contemporary with the launching of SS Caronia of the Cunard Line. Note the Cunard red funnel colors, with black top and bands, and Cunard house flags flying from the masts. This artist is likely the same artist that painted SS Saxonia, also in this collection.
SS Caronia was launched for Cunard Line in 1904, and built by John Brown & Company on the Clyde River, Scotland. Except for military service during World War I, she was a passenger liner from 1905 to 1932. In 1932 she was sold for scrapping in Blyth, England. She was resold to the Japanese, sailed to Japan as Taiseiyo Maru, and scrapped at Osaka in 1933.