The background for the creation of the painting was detailed in a note, present at the auction:  <i>"Gallileæ" af Helsingør, Moses Melchoir, passajerskib til Vestindien. Malet af Locher som afdrag paa gæld fra "Slapkisten", om bord truet med gældsfængsel ved ankomst til København. Efter opfordring senere, da Locher havde faaet et navn nægtede han at signere det" ("Gallileæ" of Elsinore, Moses Melchior, passenger ship to the West Indies. Painted by Locher as an instalment on his debt to the slop chest. He had been threatened with debtors' prison on the arrival to Copenhagen. At a later stage, when he had become an established painter, he was asked to sign the painting, but refused.)</i>. Locher was on board the ship on his journey home from a trip to the West Indies in 1870-71. The <i>Galilei</i> (spelling from jmarcussen.dk) was built in Norrköping, Sweden in 1855 for Th. Kastrup of Copenhagen. Bought by Moses &amp; Søn G. Melchior, Copenhagen in 1865, and then by a partnership led by H.E. Hansen in 1874. In March 1883 she ran aground at Bulbjerg in West Jutland and was wrecked. <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.jmarcussen.dk/maritim/skibsliste/side.php?id=3386">Ship description (in Danish) at jmarcussen.dk</a>.
<bdi><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Carl_Locher" class="extiw" title="w:en:Carl Locher"><span title="Danish realist painter (1851-1915)">Carl Locher</span></a>
</bdi>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://bruun-rasmussen.dk/m/lots/DBEBC1695AE0">bruun-rasmussen.dk</a>