(1908 - 1941) Germany's first U-Boat ace who snuck his U-47 into the British anchorage at Scapa Flow and sank the Royal Oak with a huge loss of life. He went on to sink a total of 28 merchant ships before meeting his end in a depth charge attack. Excellent, very rare signed original painting by Prien, 10 1/2" x 7" matted to 12 1/2" x 9 1/2" bearing captions by Prien as well. Using a black ink wash, Prien has executed a dramatic naval encounter of World War I showing five ships bombarding each other, one capsizing at right. At bottom, Prien captions his artwork on the mount (in German): "The cruiser squadron Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Nurnberg, Leipzig, Dresden destroy on 6.11.14 the English armored cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth and damaging Glasgow and Otranto!" Prien also draws arrows and identifies four vessels in his painting. Boldly signed "Prien" at lower-right. Mat lightly soiled, else near fine. Set into a simple frame, lacking glass. At the Battle of Coronel off the coast of Chile, the Germans completely outclassed and outgunned the British, handing them their first naval defeat since the War of 1812. The entire crews of the Monmouth and the Good Hope were lost.