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Joseph Mallord William Turner British
Not on view
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.
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6044. Whalers
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915. Kids: Whalers
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Artwork Details
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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
Accession Number: 96.29
Learn more about this artwork
The Artist Project: Raymond Pettibon
Artist Raymond Pettibon reflects on Joseph Mallord William Turner in this episode of The Artist Project.
Timeline of Art History
Essay
John Constable (1776-1837)
Essay
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)
Essay
Roger Fenton (1819-1869)
Essay
Romanticism
Essay
The Hudson River School
Essay
The Salon and The Royal Academy
Essay
Watercolor Painting in Britain, 1750-1850
Chronology
Great Britain and Ireland, 1800-1900 A.D.
Museum Publications
"Turner's Whaling Pictures" The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 73, no. 4 (Spring, 2016)
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Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Looking to Connect with European Paintings: Visual Approaches for Teaching in the Galleries
European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865: A Summary Catalogue
British Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1575–1875
The Artist Project
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