Painted Ship Lights

Regularily you come across painted ship lamps. This can have several reasons.
Most of the time, the zinc ship lamps are painted, but sometimes also the copper and brass ship lamps

Ship Lights Painted Along With The Color Of The Boat

It regularly happens that the ship's lamps are painted the color of its boat simply because the owner likes to do so. You also often see port ship lamps that are painted red and starboard lights that are painted green. These ship lamps were usually within a container of the same color.

Paint serving as protection

Copper and brass ship lamps are resistant to weather influences. Zinc can easily rust and is more often seen painted to protect the metal.

The three ship ligths above are from Antik Rustikal:

Ship Lights Painted In Folk Art Style

In addition, there exists a unique artistic form of painting ship lamps. A lovely example is the ship's lamp below, which is painted according to the tradition of Hindeloopen. Incredibly detailed and decorative.

This anchor light is signed with RH, which stands for Roosje Hindeloopen. This company has been active in Hindelooper painting since 1894. I've been in contact with them, and they didn't have any lamps in stock, which indicates it had been painted on commission, probably in the eighties.