ADOLF BOCK. The ship Stella Polaris, signed and dated 1950, oil on canvas.

70x101 cm 80x120 cm
"Stella Polaris" was one of the world's first cruise ships and once ridden to the world's most beautiful ship. The marine painter Adolf Bock has depicted the vessel several times, partly in oil painting, but also in illustration assignments for Allhem's publishing house in Malmö.

Here, the ship is depicted during one of its cruise tours in 1950. M / S Stella Polaris was built at Götaverken in Gothenburg in 1926-27 for the Norwegian shipping company Det Bergenske Dampskibsselskab (BDS), where she was intended for primarily North Cape cruises.

There she sailed until 1940, when she was requested by the German Navy and was used as a recreational vessel for German submarine officers. At the end of the war, she was taken over by the Ministry of War Transport in England and used to carry prisoners of war from Mo in Rana. In November 1945, she was returned to BDS and then went to a shipyard in Gothenburg for renovation in 1946. In 1951 she was bought by the Swedish Clipper Line. She sailed in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea, for example, before she was sold in 1969 to Japanese International House Co. Ltd. in Tokyo and was converted into a hotel and restaurant. She was anchored at Kisho in Numazu about 130 km southwest of Tokyo. There she was renamed Floating Hotel Scandinavia and served as a restaurant and hotel until March 30, 2005.

In February 2006, the vessel was sold to the Swedish company Petro-Fast in Stockholm, which intended to use her as a hotel and restaurant vessel. On September 2, 2006, the ship would be towed from the Izu Peninsula in Japan to Shanghai in China for refurbishment, as she sank just over three kilometers southwest of the port city of Kushimoto. The vessel, which was now renamed Scandinavia, sank at Japanese time at 02.02 and is now at a depth of 70 meters.