Posner Maritime Art Collection
SS Havana
by Antonio Jacobsen
Oil on canvas
This painting of SS Havana is dated 1901, and is an example of Jacobsen’s typical style. Jacobsen signed this painting, “A. Jacobsen 1901,” in the lower right corner along with his address “31 Palisades Avenue, Hoboken.”
The New York & Cuba Mail Line was also known as the Ward Line. Note the Ward Line house flag on the main mast and the American Flag at the stern. Havana is shown in a storm, on rough water and under gray skies. This painting is not listed in Antonio Jacobsen: The Checklist nor addendums, and represents a Jacobsen painting apparently not known to the late Jacobsen scholar and author Harold Sniffen. The vessel in this painting should not be confused with the second SS Havana built in 1907. Jacobsen’s paintings of the second Havana are dated 1907 and later.
The SS Havana was built in 1898, at the William Cramp Shipyard, near Philadelphia, but was immediately pressed into Naval service, along with all other Ward Line vessels, during the Spanish American War. She was about 300 feet in length, 5,000 gross tons. SS Havana was built specifically for the New York to Havana run and other ports to the South. In 1905, returning from Spanish American War service, the SS Havana was sold to the Panama Railroad and renamed SS Panama. In 1926, the Alaska Steamship Company purchased her and renamed her SS Aleutian. The SS Aleutian was wrecked in Uyak Bay, Amook Island, Alaska, in 1929.