A portrait showing the barque ‘Antagonist’. Built in 1854 she initially travelled between Plymouth, London and Madras and Batavia. She also went to the Baltic, Cronstadt and Germany, the site of this painting.

Peteresen was a German artist who worked and lived in Altona and Hamburg, and specialised in ships’ portraits such as this. In such paintings he generally positioned the ship's and/or the captain's name in the left bottom water section, and with his red or white signature placed on the right side.

There are several inscriptions on the painting, bottom left ‘Antagonist Captain Edwin Blake entering Elbe’, and it is signed bottom right ‘H. Petersen’ and dated 1856.