The Old Frigate Iris with Her Freight of Cable Alongside the Great Eastern at Sheerness: The Cable Passed from the Hulk to the Great Eastern

The Old Frigate Iris with Her Freight of Cable Alongside the Great Eastern at Sheerness: The Cable Passed from the Hulk to the Great Eastern

Robert Charles Dudley

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of the 19th century's great technological achievements was to lay a telegraphic cable beneath the Atlantic, allowing messages to speed back and forth between North America and Europe in minutes, rather than ten or twelve days by steamer. An initially successful attempt in 1858, led by Cyrus W. Field and financed by the Atlantic Telegraph Company, failed after three weeks. Two working cables were finally laid in July and September 1866, the result of repeated efforts by the indefatigable Field, a cadre of engineers, technicians, and sailors, two groups of financial backers, and significant help from the British and United States navies. This watercolor by Dudley shows the cable being loaded onto the ocean-going steamer, the Great Eastern, off the Thames Estuary on the Kent coast. In 1865 the huge ship ship set out with 2,400 miles of cable weighing 4,000 pounds per nautical mile, coiled into three great tanks. Part of a series documenting the long, arduous process, this image was reproduced as a color lithograph in William H. Russell's 1866 book "The Atlantic Telegraph" (92.10.100 and 61.536.5). In 1892 Field donated art works by Dudley, a copy of Russell's book, commemorative medals, memorabilia, and specimens of cable to the Museum.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Old Frigate Iris with Her Freight of Cable Alongside the Great Eastern at Sheerness: The Cable Passed from the Hulk to the Great EasternThe Old Frigate Iris with Her Freight of Cable Alongside the Great Eastern at Sheerness: The Cable Passed from the Hulk to the Great EasternThe Old Frigate Iris with Her Freight of Cable Alongside the Great Eastern at Sheerness: The Cable Passed from the Hulk to the Great EasternThe Old Frigate Iris with Her Freight of Cable Alongside the Great Eastern at Sheerness: The Cable Passed from the Hulk to the Great EasternThe Old Frigate Iris with Her Freight of Cable Alongside the Great Eastern at Sheerness: The Cable Passed from the Hulk to the Great Eastern

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.