Lot 109: AR TP Charles Pears, RSMA (British, 1873-1958) Mauretania

Charles Pears, RSMA (British, 1873-1958)
Mauretania signed 'Chas PEARS' (lower left)oil on canvas239 x 364cm (94 1/8 x 143 5/16in).

Of all the great liners that once plied the North Atlantic, the Mauretania was perhaps the most famous. Conceived with her equally celebrated sister ship Lusitania, the two ships were built as a British response to the increasing threat to Cunard's domination of the transatlantic passenger trade posed by the brash White Star Line which, in 1901, had passed into American ownership. Mauretania, at 31,938 tons, was launched on 20th September 1906 and was ready for trials exactly a year later. Her builders, Swan Hunter, handed her over to Cunard on 7th November 1907 and she sailed from Liverpool on her maiden voyage to New York on 16th November. On the return passage, she established a new record for the eastward crossing with an average speed of 23.69 knots, amply justifying the faith that had been placed in her giant turbine engines. In May 1908 she broke the record for the westbound crossing, only losing it to her sister a few months later. Regaining it in September 1909, when her average speed on the westward passage reached 26.06 knots, this new record was to stand for a remarkable twenty years until broken by the German liner Bremen.Financed by a Government loan like her sister, Mauretania was requisitioned for war service in 1914 and operated as both a troop transport and a hospital ship. Eventually released in May 1919, she resumed peacetime sailings only for them to be interrupted in July 1921 when she was severely damaged by fire whilst at Southampton. Repaired, remodelled and converted to oil-firing, she returned to service in March 1922 and once again set new speed records which averaged 25.5 knots. Despite her advancing age, she was rapidly becoming an institution among the travelling public and became a living legend as the 1920s drew to a close. When she eventually lost the 'Blue Riband' to the Bremen in July 1929, she took up the challenge to recover it immediately with her fastest-ever crossings over the measured distance. Her average speed on the homeward run of 27.2 knots narrowly failed to catch Bremen's 27.9, but it was an astonishing achievement for the twenty-two year old veteran against the new German contender. In 1930, against a background of deteriorating economic conditions, she was withdrawn from the North Atlantic and put onto cruising. In May 1933, her hull was painted white to reflect this new rôle but she only survived two more years until sold for scrapping in 1935. The public mourned her as affectionately as they had honoured her in her prime. She had won for herself a place in maritime history such as no other steamship had ever done and it was not in the least surprising that even long after she had been broken up, she was still commonly known as "The Grand Old Lady of the Atlantic".