Friday Find: Antonio Jacobsen’s Pathfinder painting

The Pathfinder was built to meet a specific need. Gold had been discovered in Alaska, causing a demand for safe shipping routes through the Bering Sea. The new research vessel was tricked out with all of the most important survey research tools of its time and designed to withstand harsh winters when it left port in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, headed for the North Pacific in 1899. 

Antonio Jacobsen, who lived very close by, painted a picture of it. He was a noted artist who created more than 6,000 accurate, almost scientific works during his career, mostly of specific ships. Although not a household name now, he was well known by his contemporaries and sailors of his own era. Art historians have referred to him as the “Audubon of Steam Vessels,” and several of his paintings have even been highlighted as treasures on PBS’ Antiques Roadshow. 

It remains unclear who commissioned Jacobsen’s painting of the Pathfinder at the end of the 1800s. He had a reputation for working for a very low fee. He may have painted it without knowing who would eventually purchase it. 

The ship was built for use by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, the government bureau which would eventually become NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey and the National Geodetic Survey. Although designed for harsh winter conditions, the tough little craft was mostly assigned to tasks in tropical waters, and even played a role in surveying during the Philippine-American War. Its name was changed in July of 1940 to Research just a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s involvement in World War II. The ship was hit by Japanese bombers in December 1941, while on survey assignment near Manila, and shortly thereafter it went aground and was destroyed by looters.

There are several grainy black and white photos of the first Pathfinder at work on the water, and many written accounts of its service to the federal government’s survey teams. But the painting hanging in the NOAA library provides a unique level of visual detail and is the only color representation of the ship in its early days. The work serves as an important link to NOAA’s unique maritime history and the sometimes unexpected journeys and assignments that federal vessels, including the NOAA ships of today and their assigned crews, have had to fulfill.

It was conserved, restored and mounted in a climate controlled environment in the Library of NOAA’s Silver Spring headquarters in 2016.