Luce Foundation Center

Smithsonian American Art Museum

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The nation’s first collection of American art, an unparalleled record of the American experience.

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Renwick Gallery

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Located just feet from the White House, a branch of the museum that is home the nation's collection of contemporary craft and decorative art.

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How Do I Research My Art?

Want to learn more about the painting you found while clearing out the attic? For answers, be prepared for a little detective work.

How to Care for Your Collections

Regardless of the monetary value of your artwork, if it is personally meaningful, you should consider having the object conserved.

Recording a Changing Nation

This resource uses images from photographic surveys in 55 communities in 30 states across the United States as source documents to spark sustained inquiry.

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A detail of stained glass with a figure, in a fetal position, at the middle

Contemporary Craft in Focus: The Birth of Eve

Artist Judith Schaechter uses the labor-intensive medium of stained glass to capture a singular moment in time

Detail of brown ceramic jar with writing and the signature "Dave" inscribed around the top.

David “Dave” Drake: Potter and Poet

Craftsman David “Dave” Drake, enslaved for most of his life, produced uncommonly large ceramic jars in 19th-century South Carolina adorned by his poetic verses

Director’s Circle

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A membership group for young professionals who are interested in immersing themselves in the American art experience.

The Ocean-Going Tug “May McWilliams”

Media - 1966.83 - SAAM-1966.83_1 - 63465

Copied Antonio Jacobsen, The Ocean-Going Tug "May McWilliams", ca. 1895, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1966.83

Free to use

Artwork Details

Title: The Ocean-Going Tug “May McWilliams”
Artist: Antonio Jacobsen
Date: ca. 1895
Location: Smithsonian American Art Museum
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Luce Foundation Center
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3rd Floor
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9B
Dimensions: 22 ¹⁄₈ x 36 ¹⁄₈ in. (56.2 x 91.6 cm.)
Credit Line: Museum purchase
Mediums: oil
Mediums Description: oil on canvas
Classifications: Painting
Keywords: Architecture — boat — May McWilliams
Waterscape — sea
Travel — water — tugboat
Object Number: 1966.83
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1966.83

Artwork Description

Antonio Jacobsen spent his free time at New York’s harbor and along the Hudson River, painting pictures of vessels as small as tugboats and as large as transatlantic liners. A close look at this painting of the tugboat May McWilliams shows the captain in the top cabin at the front of the vessel and a single passenger at the rear. Harbor captains used tugboats as early as the 1700s to escort larger ships through narrow or complicated passages.