Capturing a Sperm Whale

Mediumaquatint, paper

Dimensions18 3/8 × 24 in. (46.7 × 61 cm)

Donor credit lineKendall Whaling Museum Collection Transfer

Object number2001.100.7579

Institutional Credit LineCourtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum

DescriptionFramed image, in color, of a sperm whale, facing right foreground, spouting (blood). A rowboat is being broken over the whale's back and tale, sending men flying into the water. A second rowboat is beside the whale, to the left. The whale has two harpoons in its left side. A large ship is on the horizon, to right, with a third ship behind it. Title with text, below, with vignette (center) of a spouting sperm whale. See Ingalls, Elizabeth. Whaling Prints in the Francis B. Lothrop Collection. Salem: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1987. p. 127, # 251. See also 1960.21 and 2001.100.7578. For use of reproductions of this image, see 2001.100.7561, 2001.100.4826 and 2001.100.5083.Provenance"Painted by Wm. Page [William, Albany, NY 1811-1865 Tottenville] from a sketch by C. B. Hulsart." Copy of the complete text of Hulsart's treatise, Concise, Yet Perfect Detail of the Sperm Whale Fishery... on file in the curatorial offices. Files also contain an account of Hulsart's amputation at sea, as recounted in the Peoples' Advocate, New London, Connecticut, June 2 1841.

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