A souvenir of “La Bandera Spanish” Line of steamers.

Album that the company “La Bandera Española” gave as a gift to José María Avendaño, partner of this company who was in charge of the management of the company in Cuba.

The album begins with a beautiful miniature cover with the dedication, continues with 10 magnificent watercolors of 26,5 x 39 cm. by the English artist James Whitam. These watercolors show some of the most outstanding ships of the company’s fleet such as El Euskaro, Castellano, Catalán, etc… Finally, after the watercolors we find 9 sheets that include 17 photographs of 13,5 x 9,5 cm. of the founders of the company as well as of partners and probably,
the most outstanding captains.

La Bandera Española was an important shipping company at the end of the 19th century formed by the English shipowners Jhon Glynn & Sons, from Liverpool, and the Spaniards Manuel María de Arreotegui (a notable captain from Bustur) and Enrique Soberón, an Asturian born in Liverpool. Also involved in this business was Jose Maria Avendaño, who was given this album as a gift and who, through his company Avendaño & Cia, was in charge of the ships operating in Cuba.

Manuel María Arrótegui, was born in Busturia on March 25, 1838. On January 10, 1855 he was appointed in Madrid as second private pilot of the race of America and registered in the registry of private pilots of El Ferrol on February 1, 1855. Already in the 1860s, Arrotegui settled in Liverpool being one of the partners of the firm of Ship-chandlers Albizuri, Arrotegui & Co. On Albizuri’s death, which occurred before 1880, Arrotegui joined Enrique Soberón, of Asturian origin although born in Liverpool, appearing in 1883 as Ship-chandlers and Ship-store Merchants and traders. Between 1879 and 1890 Arrotegui acquired 12 ships that served a line between Liverpool and Cuba and Puerto Rico, La Bandera Española, calling at Santander on the outward leg. The agency of the ships was carried out in Liverpool by Hawkes & Sommerville and in Cuba by Avendaño y Cía. The lender was John Glynn & Sons, to whom Arrotegui assigned, as interest, “the profit that the aforementioned mortgaged vessel produces and to which the aforementioned gentlemen are liable for all the expenses necessary for the good conservation of the vessel, the marine risk insurance and all others, as well as the losses that might occur, without them having the least right to claim against the said Don Manuel María de Arrotegui”.

In the album we find photographic portraits of Manuel María de Arrotegui, Walter and D.E. Glynn, John. E. Hawkes, John. M. Sommerville, Enrique de Soberón, J.H. Genn, Saturnino de Aldecoa, Eugenio de Luzarraga, Rosendo Campoamor, J.B. Arribalzaga, J.B. de Luzarraga, M.L. de Tellería, C. De Luzárraga, J.M. de Dramis, José de Guerricaechevarria and J. De Goicoechea. These are probably the only surviving photographs of many of these people.

This is therefore a spectacular album, the result of the power and wealth of this important Anglo-Bilbao shipping company in the last third of the 19th century.

Binding in full leather of the period with metal superlibris in one of the planes. Metal clasps. All the leaves have foxing stains.