The Whale Fishery: Attacking a "Right Whale" --and "Cutting In"
ca. 1860
Medium
Hand-colored lithograph
Dimensions
Image: 16 1/8 × 23 13/16 in. (41 × 60.5 cm) Sheet: 19 7/8 in. × 27 in. (50.5 × 68.6 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Adele S. Colgate, 1962
Accession Number
63.550.285
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the thrilling world of 19th-century American wh with *The Whale Fishery: Att a "Right Whale"and "Cutting In" a hand-colored lithograph the prolific firm Currier & Ives, circa 1860. vivid print (16 1/8 × 23 13/16 in.) captures two perilous stages of the hunt: whalers in small boats fiercely attacking a massive right whale with harpoons, and the gruesome "cutting in" process, where blubber is stripped from the carcass aboard the ship. Amidst churning seas and dramatic skies, it glorifies the bravery of seamen battling nature's giants. Whaling peaked in the mid-1800s as a vital industr...