Sailboat Stamped Card

The Postal Service highlights America’s scenic beauty with this stamped card. Whether racing along the coast or simply bobbing in harbors, sailboats add to the allure of any water view.

This impressionistic image of a moored sailboat was created by Burton Silverman, who painted the scene in oil on a gesso surface board. The sailboat, a one-masted sloop, rests with its sails furled while a single sailor stands on deck. Silverman based the painting on a photograph he took during a summer sailing trip to Long Island Sound.

The landscape is a departure for Silverman, a well-known portraitist whose work appears on a dozen stamps previously issued by the U.S. Postal Service, including Igor Stravinsky (1981), Raoul Wallenberg (1997), and Arthur Fiedler (1998). Rock music fans may know Silverman best for his painting of an old man featured on the cover of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung album. The card was designed by art director Derry Noyes.