Approaching Safe Harbor: The American Frigate's Return, circa 1920

A United States frigate under way toward her anchorage, a heliotype with hand coloring made around 1920 after the French maritime artist Jean-Jérôme Baugean. The caption printed in a brown band beneath the image reads "Frégate des États-Unis d'Amérique, courant au mouillage", meaning frigate of the United States of America running to her anchorage.

The ship is seen broadside to the left, sailing over a choppy blue-green sea under a pale, cloud-streaked sky. The stars and stripes flies from the stern, a long red pennant streams from the main masthead, and the sails are loosely furled in warm yellow tones. Rows of gunports run along the hull, and a rocky headland sits at the right horizon. The picture is set within a printed green border, with a second thin rule outside it.

Baugean worked in the early nineteenth century and was known for accurate portraits of ships of many navies, which makes this sheet a record of how an American warship of the period looked to French eyes.