Recent Acquisitions

Then Another and Another Appeared—A Rat-Queued Horde, . . . Sliding Toward Me, in a Glitter of Keen Knives, c. 1912 Clifford Warren Ashley (1881-1947) Oil on board, 30 x 20 inches Gayle and Alene Hoskins Endowment Fund, 2006

Clifford Warren Ashley (1881–1947) painted Then Another and Another Appeared—A Rat-Queued Hord, . . . Sliding Toward Me, in a Glitter of Keen Knives, 1911, as an illustration for “The Burden of the Line: A Story of the United States Navy.”  This tale focuses on the U.S. Navy ship The Infanta, a Spanish-War leftover sent up the Yangtse River shortly after the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 to protect American interests. On that ship a German-born machinist, “Shuzzy” Gossheutz, and Ensign Rufus Cole deal with the violent aftermath of a Seattle-based company bringing in foreign machinery that replaced many natives’ jobs as well as a growing cholera epidemic in the region. Despite the situation, the crew is under orders not to open fire on their attackers unless it is life or death. During their voyage past the Yetan Rapid, a band of native pirates board the ship in an attempt to take it over.  Ensign Cole, whose neck is bandaged from a prior assault, attacks the natives with the butt of his gun, as shown in the foreground of the painting. The story also whirls around a series of confrontations between Cole and Shuzzy, who wants to be promoted even though he is severely colorblind.  Shuzzy’s fearlessness during the pirate attack suggests that he deserves the promotion despite his concealed condition. 

The tension of battle is conveyed in this painting by the confusion of bodies and the diagonal thrust of the Chinese pirates coming up over the side of the warship.  Even though the composition was painted in tones of black, white, and gray, Ashley differentiates the skin tones of the two races by adding taupe highlights to the Chinese skin.

Ashley studied art in Boston at the Eric Pape School of Art (along with N.C. Wyeth, Sidney Chase, and Ashley’s cousin Henry Peck) and then in 1901 with the landscape painter George L. Noyes. He moved to Wilmington in 1902 along with N. C. Wyeth in order to study illustration with Howard Pyle.