Quarter plate outdoor ambrotype after a painting. N.p., [1857]. Full thermoplastic case. With period ink note pinned to mat describing the image: “Ship 'Fleet Wing' laying to in a gale of wind off the Cape of Good Hope. The 9 + 10th of June 1857.” 

A crystal-clear quarter plate ambrotype after a painting of a ship battling gales of wind off the Cape of Good Hope. We can locate two ships named the “Fleet Wing” — one a clipper which sailed from New York to San Francisco, and unlikely to be sailing near South Africa. There was also a barque dubbed “Fleet Wing” built in Halls Bay, Newfoundland, and registered at St. John’s in 1857. Not much is known about her routes, though she was condemned as unseaworthy in Lisbon, Portugal, and may have taken voyages around the Cape of Good Hope. 

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