A native of Germany, Edward Everard Arnold began his artistic career as a jack-of-all-trades. By 1850, he had settled in New Orleans, and city directories from that time until his death in 1866 variously list him as a lithographer, sign painter, and fancy painter. However, it is for his ship portraits, scenes of naval engagements, and other events on the high seas that Arnold is best remembered. One local newspaper, commenting on his work of this genre, reported: "We have seen, recently, some beautifully modeled steamers and admirably executed sailing vessels by Arnold; superior in style and perfect finish to any which have preceded them."

The War Between the States presented new subject matter and challenges for Arnold's brush, which he met admirably. He produced vivid pictorial accounts of two of the South's most devastating naval defeats, including the Battle of Port Hudson and Battle of Mobile Bay. This example portrays the Antonia, a stern-wheel river steamboat that served as a Confederate blockade runner during the war, transporting passengers, contraband cotton, and war materials between Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Mexico. Arnold's signature on this painting, its setting on the Rio Grande, and the date of its execution suggest that the Antonia had taken the bold step of entering the Union-occupied port of New Orleans under the flag of the Mexican empire.

Arnold often worked in collaboration with the British-born painter James Guy Evans. Their most ambitious project, a panoramic view of New Orleans, never materialized.

Provenance
Altmayer Limited Partnership, Mobile, AL

Literature
A General Catalog of Recently Acquired Prints, Paintings, Relics and Models, Parker Gallery, p. 38, no. 17, ill.

Calm in the Shadow of the Palmetto and Magnolia: Southern Art  from The Charleston Renaissance Gallery, Roberta Sokolitz (2003; Charleston: The Charleston Renaissance Gallery), illustrated page 71.

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