Nearly as celebrated as Constitution, her sister ship, USS Constellation was one of the first frigates built for the U.S. Navy, and was launched from Baltimore in 1797. At the turn of the century Constellation patrolled the Caribbean, where her capture of the French warship Insurgent greatly increased the prestige of the young American navy. Subsequently, she was stationed in the Mediterranean, where she protected U.S. interests against the feared privateers of Tripoli.
In December 1833, attempting a passage between the western coast of Turkey and mountainous islands off Greece, Constellation was nearly destroyed in a violent gale. Her safe arrival, after nearly a week in the storm, was due to the heroic seamanship of Captain Reed (or Read), whose name is inscribe at the bottom of this painting. The artist, possibly the same J. H. Wright who was active as a portrait painter in New York City at mid-century, created this stirring image some twenty years later, after the original square stern of the ship was replaced with the round stern that appears here. Although Wright described the vessel with some of the specificity of traditional ship portraits, his primary goal was to convey the drama of the event. He painted with great brio the shredded mainsail, the broken boom, and especially the hideous buffeting of the ship by the great serpentine wave that writhes across the surface of the painting like a primeval sea monster.

This text was adapted from Gerald W. R. Ward, et al, American Folk (Boston, MFA Publications, 2001).

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