Artist:
Howard Pyle
(American, 1853 - 1911)
The Pirates Fire upon the Fugitives
Medium: Oil on board
Date: 1895
Dimensions:
16 × 10 in. (40.6 × 25.4 cm)
Accession number: 2007.11.12
Label Copy:
Howard Pyle may be best known for his illustrations of classic tales of adventure, but he was also an author of them himself. The Pirates Fire Upon the Fugitives depicts the thrilling close of chapter 39 of Pyle’s novel Jack Ballister’s Fortunes, originally published serially in St. Nicholas: A Monthly Magazine for Boys and Girls. In the story, the English orphan Jack Ballister is kidnapped and sold into slavery on a Virginia tobacco plantation. Pyle here depicts Ballister and his friend the pirate Christian Dred fleeing from the infamous pirate Blackbeard, from whom they have stolen precious cargo.