The Flying Dutchman
Pyle, Howard, American illustrator, painter, author, 1853-1911
[December 8, 1900]
oil on canvas
Museum Purchase, 1912

The Flying Dutchman illustrates a popular legend about a Dutch East India ship's captain, who while sailing in the midst of a great storm off the Cape of Good Hope vowed to round the cape even if the ship had to sail until Judgment Day. According to the tale, Satan overheard the vow and cursed the Captain and his crew. They were condemned to sail continuously only coming ashore once every seven years to seek a woman who would be faithful until death in order to break the curse. Pyle’s maniacal sea captain dominates the pitched deck of their rotting ship that is continuously lashed by high seas graphically conveying the wildness of both the storm and the man.

OR
According to legend, a Dutch sea captain named Vanderdecken was condemned by the Devil to roam the seas until redeemed by a woman's love. In Richard Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman, the sea captain leaves the ship every seven years to search for a wife. He finds Senta, who is willing to marry him. However, the Dutchman fears she has been unfaithful. Prepared to die for him, Senta throws herself off a cliff into the sea. The ghost ship with the Dutchman and Senta vanish forever.