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Notes
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This so-called pen-painting on panel provides a graphic description of whaling practices of the seventeenth century. A number of three-masters anchor among the pack ice. The carcasses of the hunted whales float between the ice floes and the ships, while sailors in rowing boats and on the ice prepare to strip the animals’ blubber. Dutch whaling in the Arctic had started in the early seventeenth century, driven by the economic aims of the Noordsche Compagnie, or North Company, part of the Dutch fleet. Dutch whalers were sailing up the coast of Greenland and of Norway where they found themselves competing with the British. Dutch whaling reached its peak between 1680 and 1725. It is, therefore, not surprising that the pictorial adaptation of this industry in Dutch art, which itself depended on artists’ specialisation, also saw an increase during the last quarter of the seventeenth century.
Title
Dutch Whalers in the Ice
Date
18th C
Medium
oil & grisaille on panel
Measurements
H 59.6 x W 77.4 cm
Accession number
BHC0941
Work type
Painting
