What was claimed
A camera with photographs of the Titanic sinking has been discovered in the ocean.
Our verdict
We can find no evidence to support this. The image on this post is a recent painting, not a photograph.
A picture of the Titanic sinking is not a newly discovered photograph
20 November 2020
A widely viewed Facebook post shares a recent painting of the Titanic, but implies that it was a photograph taken at the time.
“A camera discovered deep in the ocean containing dramatic pictures of the sinking Titanic has been found,” the post says. “What must those survivors have felt as they witnessed such a huge and remarkable ship slowly slide into the ice-cold water leaving behind so many loved ones?”
New photographs of the Titanic disaster do sometimes come to light, but we can find no reports of a camera being recently recovered from the ocean itself.
The picture in the post is a black and white version of a painting from 1996 by the artist Ken Marschall, who also worked on the film Titanic, which was released the following year. Mr Marschall’s signature would be visible in the corner, has the image not been trimmed at the bottom.
The painting was used on the cover of Life Magazine in June 1997.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because the image in the post is not a photograph of the Titanic.