Stonington - The owner of a Stamford-based shipping company donated a painting that depicts the 1814 Battle of Stonington to the Stonington Historical Society, which plans to use the new work to help bring the early-American conflict to life.

A few years ago, Charles Timberlake, who owns Atlas Shipping Ltd. of Stamford, started to make plans for a painting he was commissioning from S. Francis Smitheman, a London-based artist who specializes in artwork of naval battles, which Timberlake collects.

Timberlake said he was considering commissioning a work that showed the British blockade of Long Island Sound, but he did not immediately know of a specific historic event the painting could show. A friend suggested he look into the Battle of Stonington, so Timberlake bought "The Battle of Stonington," a book by Stonington historian James Tertius deKay.

"I sent away for it on Amazon and read it twice, three times," Timberlake said on Sunday, when he presented the 4-by-2½-foot painting to the Stonington Historical Society. "It was fascinating - a great story in its own right."

Over the next year, Timberlake, deKay and others did more research for the finished painting, a vignette that shows events spanning all four days of the battle, when civilians defended Stonington from four British warships. The cannons used in the battle were recently restored and sit in Cannon Square, located in Stonington Borough.

The painting Timberlake presented on Sunday is a copy of the original he commissioned, which is on display at his New Canaan home. Slightly larger than the original, it was painted by Smitheman, who signed the work in its lower left corner.

"The timing is perfect as we come up to the bicentennial of the War of 1812," said Meredith Brown, president of the Stonington Historical Society. Several local museums plan to commemorate the war with exhibits and events, and the new painting will be featured prominently among 200-year-old pieces, Brown said.

For now, the painting is on display at the historical society's R.W. Woolworth Library, located on Palmer Street. The group hopes to move it to the Old Lighthouse Museum, where visitors - especially schoolchildren from Stonington - will be able to see a recreation of the Battle of Stonington.

"I can imagine standing here with a bunch of kids, really being able to explain and show all four days of it," deKay said. "You certainly get a very clear picture of what it was like. It tells the story in kind of a wonderful way."