Francisco Mauro Severiano Carrau was born on 8 November 1884 in Montevideo, Uruguay, the son of Pedro Carrau and Antonia Rovira. He was a board member of Carrau & Co., a Uruguayan import and maritime trading company still in operation today.
Carrau booked First Class passage aboard the RMS Titanic, ticket number 113059 (£47 2s), and boarded at Southampton on 10 April 1912, travelling with his relative José Pedro Carrau. According to family lore, on boarding he found his cabin assignment missing and insisted the matter be corrected at once, after which cabins were promptly allocated.
On the night of 14–15 April 1912, fellow passengers reported seeing Carrau and his travelling companion together with fellow Uruguayan passenger Ramon Artagaveytia as the disaster unfolded; accounts of their demeanour differ, with one witness describing them as relaxed and joking, and another recalling them as visibly alarmed.
Francisco Mauro Severiano Carrau died in the sinking of the Titanic on 15 April 1912, at the age of 27. His body was never recovered or identified.
This artwork, Titanic Commemorative Memorabilia No. 678, is dedicated by artist Dodo Newman to the memory of Francisco Mauro Severiano Carrau as part of the 100th Anniversary of the Titanic collection, handcrafted on PlexiGlass with Swarovski crystals.
Sources: Encyclopedia Titanica (Francisco Mauro Severiano Carrau biography); Certificate of Authenticity, Titanic Commemorative Memorabilia No. 678 (Dodo Newman).
