A 127‑year‑old maritime display — tied to the company that built the Titanic — has surfaced in Cherokee, and the consignment shop now housing it says it may be one of the rarest pieces to come through its doors.
Lazy Cat Antiques owner Jeri Terry says the 1899 ship portrait arrived quietly: a man from Salix brought it in with other consignment items, unaware of its significance. The framed picture had been sitting in his attic for decades.
Terry didn’t realize what she had until she photographed it for research.
That history turned out to be remarkable. The piece is an original White Star Line advertising display, created in 1899 for ticket offices promoting transatlantic travel. White Star Line — the British shipping company that later built the Titanic — produced high‑end chromolithographed displays for railroad hubs and immigrant communities across the Midwest.
Terry says the ship featured in the painting was a major vessel in its day.
The artwork itself is unusually high end. Instead of paper, it’s printed directly onto woven canvas, a technique used for premium advertising pieces in the late 1800s.
The canvas has rippled from age and humidity, and the frame shows its 19th‑century construction — including gold leaf remnants and original backing. Despite water damage and wrinkles, Terry says the piece remains extraordinary.
The painting also contains roughly 30 wax port stamps, or ghost stamps — markings that once indicated where the ship traveled and where the display hung.
Terry says the ship itself later served in World War I and was destroyed in 1914.
She has sent detailed photos to Henry Aldridge & Son, a well‑known maritime auction house in the United Kingdom that specializes in White Star Line and Titanic‑era artifacts.
Terry hopes the appraisal will reveal even more history than the information she’s been able to dig up online.
For now, the painting is on display at Lazy Cat Antiques, located in the old creamery building at 301 W. Locust St. in Cherokee, with a tentative “to‑stay” price of $7,500 — though Terry says that could change once the appraisal comes back.
And despite only opening her shop last fall, Terry says she’s never seen anything like it.
