New Orleans Thursday the 15 of November 1849 at 5 o'clock, Explosion of the Louisiana

In spite of its relatively crude draftsmanship, Dominique Theuret’s rare chromolithograph dramatically captures the horror of the steamboat Louisiana’s dockside explosion. Recorded as one of the most disastrous steamboat accidents on record, estimates of fatalities range between 150 and 200. Moreover, as After G. Tolti graphically records, body parts were scattered over the levee. One writer describing the aftermath noted, “The effects of this disaster, unexampled in the history of steam navigation, were visible in every circle of society at New Orleans.”