Whalers
Turner was seventy years old when Whalers debuted to mixed reviews at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1845. Its subject proved elusive, as the English novelist William Thackeray observed: "That is not a smear of purple you see yonder, but a beautiful whale, whose tail has just slapped a half-dozen whale-boats into perdition; and as for what you fancied to be a few zig-zag lines spattered on the canvas at hap-hazard, look! they turn out to be a ship with all her sails." Apparently Turner undertook the painting—which was returned to him—for the collector Elhanan Bicknell, who had made his fortune in the whale-oil business.
Artwork Details
- Title: Whalers
- Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775–1851 London)
- Date: ca. 1845
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 36 1/8 x 48 1/4 in. (91.8 x 122.6 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1896
- Object Number: 96.29
- Curatorial Department: European Paintings
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