Trying to find painting showing a woman & her child being lowered from a foundering ship into a lifeboat?

Question

This painting was on the living room wall at my grandmothers' house and it scared me as a five year old (just like my grandmother did). It shows a woman holding her child and they are being transferred via a rope into a lifeboat below. They are halfway between the ship and lifeboat and they are in tremendous peril. The painting is darkish and the seas are rough. The ship is a steamer and I'm guessing the era is early 1900's. The life boat has men manning the oars and others holding the lifeline and reaching out for the mother and child. There are people at the rail of the ship and some are helping with the transfer and some are watching. The painting is cropped so only the side of the ship is seen, fairly close up. Close enough so you can see the expressions on the faces of the people involved. Size of the painting roughly 36"w x 24"h. Painting is not a Zichy or a Claxton. Thnks & rgds.

Answer 1

Sounds to me like the cover art for the original book "The Lusitania". I can't seem to find it on Google images. I saw a lot of more modern images on later editions and other stories about it but I remember that on the cover of the copy my mother had- it had something very similar to what you described.

This ship ( The Lusitania) was sunk in 1915 by German U-boat killing nearly everyone on board (about 1200 people). It was a big part of what brought the US into the war and was probably painted many times by many artists during that era.

If it was an original work then that painting might have been the only copy. There are sure to have been others though that painted the same subject. Good luck!

Most famous paintings on the subject was by Norman Wilkinson; Here is an etching of his painting:

http://www.cottontown.org/Nimoi/sites/CT/resources/jb247981.jpg

Answer 2

toddlers would be first, clearly, and then their mum and dad. As a single male without toddlers and few human beings to mourn my loss, i'd would desire to positioned myself final and need that there have been a minimum of a few individuals like myself to share a brilliant bottle of liquor on the way down. the single element I concern maximum in existence is failing to persist with meaning to it. If I sacrificed myself to maintain even another man or woman or kinfolk, i think of i'd desire to a minimum of die a greater significant dying than i'd be served via previous age.