File:Ships Through the Ages (8).jpg

English: BPLDC no.: 09_03_000074

Subtitle: Magellan's ship, Vitoria

Creator: King, Frederic Leonard (American painter and illustrator, 1879-1947)

Date created: 1934-1935

General format: oil on canvas

BPL Department: Special Collections, East Boston Branch Library

Dimensions: visible image 22 ½ x 46 ¼ in., framed 25 ½ x 49 ¼ in.

Description: In this ship, Ferdinand Magellan started upon a great and eventful expedition. He discovered the straits, which bear his name and crossed the broad Pacific. Although Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines, one of his crew continued to Spain, thus completing in the Vitoria the first circumnavigation of the globe.

Notes: The description above was written in 1935. Ships Through the Ages, originally four murals painted by Frederic Leonard King between 1934 and 1935, was commissioned as part of the Public Works Art Project for the Jeffries Point Branch of the Boston Public Library. In 1956, the Jeffries Point Branch closed, and each mural was divided into multiple paintings and relocated to the East Boston Branch Library where they are currently on display; however, several sections of the murals are missing.