c. 1800 Michele Felice CornPROBLEM: è, Oil Painting on Board, Depicting the Armed Merchant Ship “Mount Vernon” in the Aftermath of Chasing Off Several French Privateers off a Fortified Spanish Coastline Near Gibraltar on July 28th, 1799, attributed to Michele Felice CornPROBLEM: è (American, ca. 1752-1845), Choice Extremely Fine.
This important, exquisitely executed colorful Oil on Board Painting, measures 16.25 x 11.25 inches (by sight) period framed to 15.25 x 20.5 inches. The scene depicts the July 28th, 1799 closing moments of a naval engagement with several ship seen in heavy seas beneath a turbulent, cloud-filled sky. At center, an American armed merchant ship (“Mount Vernon”) still flies her American Flag colors union upside down, as does a smaller American ship following, the traditional signal of a vessel in “distress”. The number of stars painted are not clear on both flags and appear simply representative and not an exacting number. A distant fortified rocky coastal town is shown in the distance rendered in pink and tan stone at right. Additional shipping, likely being the attacking vessels drawing off, stand off at a distance. At left, a ship flying an ensign patterned with a red cross stands into the scene, positioned apart from the retreating action rather than engaged in it, consistent with a vessel arriving on the scene, rather than a being a combatant. This painting is further identified on a later brass plaque affixed to the frame attributed to and reading: "Michele Felice CornPROBLEM: è (American, ca. 1752-1845)."

The composition corresponds closely to one of the most personal subjects in CornPROBLEM: è's body of work, displayed here as the moment just after the fighting occurred rather than at its height. A native of Elba, CornPROBLEM: è fled the French occupation of Naples in 1799 aboard the Armed American merchant ship “Mount Vernon,” under Captain Elias Hasket Derby Jr., bound for the port of Salem, Massachusetts. On July 28th, 1799 during that voyage, off Cadiz near Gibraltar, the Mount Vernon fought off an attack by several French Privateers, all while under the eyes of the British fleet, an episode CornPROBLEM: è experienced firsthand, and before he ever settled in Salem to work as a painter being his career. In the aftermath of that action near Gibraltar, the ship shown at left flying a simplified red-cross ensign resolves it naturally as a vessel of the British fleet coming into view the battle scene once the Privateers had been driven off, not being one of the French attackers themselves.

The U.S. Navy's published compilation of Quasi-War-Era documents reproduces CornPROBLEM: è's own version of the subject, held today at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, captioned "Beating Off Several French Privateers Near Gibraltar," alongside a companion picture of the “Mount Vernon” departing Naples earlier that same year. CornPROBLEM: è went on to become one of the earliest and most significant marine painters working in America, later producing a monumental panorama of the “Bombardment of Tripoli” and a celebrated series depicting the USS Constitution's 1812 victory over HMS GuerriPROBLEM: ère, now displayed in the U.S. Naval Academy Museum collection. Michele Felice CornPROBLEM: è worked in Salem, then in Boston from 1807 to 1822, and spent his final years in Newport, Rhode Island, where he died in 1845.
Elias Hasket Derby Jr. (1766-1826) was the eldest son of Elias Hasket Derby Sr., the Salem, Massachusetts merchant so wealthy in his day he was nicknamed "King Derby" and is sometimes called America's first millionaire. The younger Derby grew up in that fortune: he graduated from Harvard College in 1782, then entered his father's shipping business, eventually commanding two of his father's vessels, the “Grand Turk” and the “Mount Vernon”.

In 1788 he went to the Isle of France (Mauritius) as his father's trading agent, overseeing cargo and the buying and selling of ships, before returning to Salem in 1790. His most famous command came in 1798, when his father had the well-known Salem shipbuilder Retire Becket construct a 350-ton, 100-foot ship named the “Mount Vernon”, completed in January 1799. As the finest vessel in the elder Derby's fleet, command went to the thirty-three-year-old Elias Hasket Derby Jr., who had already made several East India voyages as one of his father's ship masters.

The Mount Vernon's best-known moment came almost immediately. On July 28th, 1799, near Cadiz and in view of the British fleet, the armed American merchant ship Mount Vernon fought off a group of French privateers, an episode recorded in U.S. Navy Quasi-War documents as, "the American Armed Merchant Ship Mount Vernon, Beating Off Several French Privateers Near Gibraltar." The scene became one of the era's most reproduced maritime paintings, done by the Neapolitan-born artist Michele Felice CornPROBLEM: è.

In July 1799 the Mount Vernon sailed from Salem for the Mediterranean carrying Cuban sugar, reaching Naples after a seven-week passage that included a stop at Gibraltar. Naples had just been recaptured from the French with Nelson's help after months of revolution and bloodshed, and the wartime devastation created strong demand for the cargo, letting Captain Derby trade profitably enough to fill not only his own ship but three smaller vessels with return goods.

When the Mount Vernon left Naples in April 1800, Michele Felice CornPROBLEM: è came aboard as a passenger, arriving in Salem on July 7th. CornPROBLEM: è lived in the Derby household afterward and painted the Mount Vernon repeatedly as it appears to have been his favorite subject, producing versions for Captain Derby, for First Officer Luther Dana, and for other crew members.

Derby continued in shipping after his father's death in 1799, though the estate (divided among several Derby children) left him with a diminished fortune. In 1803 the Mount Vernon made a notable voyage from Salem trading as far as Canton and Sumatra before returning via Copenhagen, documented today in National Archives customs records.

In 1809 Derby bought another ship, the Mount Hope, but a 1809-1811 voyage to Brazil and London failed badly, and he soon relocated to Londonderry, New Hampshire. He also served as a Colonel in the Salem militia, invented a dock-mud-clearing machine, and during the War of 1812 set up the first power broadcloth loom in Massachusetts. He married Lucy Browne in 1797 and died in 1826.