J.M.W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner Whalers Boiling Blubber c.1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Whalers Boiling Blubber
c.1845
Whalers Boiling Blubber c.1845
D35245
Turner Bequest CCCLIII 6
Turner Bequest CCCLIII 6
Chalk and watercolour on white wove paper, 221 x 330 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Watermark ‘J Whatman | Turkey Mills | 1823’
Stamped in black ‘CCCLIII 6’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Watermark ‘J Whatman | Turkey Mills | 1823’
Stamped in black ‘CCCLIII 6’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1987
Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery, London, April–October 1987 (no catalogue).
1988
Summer Miscellany: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery, London, July–October 1988 (no catalogue).
1993
Turner: The Final Years: Watercolours 1840–1851, Tate Gallery, February–May 1993 (52, as ‘Whalers Boiling Blubber’, c.1845, reproduced in colour).
1998
Turner and the Scientists, Tate Gallery, London, March–June 1998 (91, as ‘Burning Blubber’, mid 1840s, reproduced in colour).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.1162, CCCLIII 6, as ‘Burning blubber’.
1972
Kenneth Clark, Michael Kitson, John Gage and others, La Peinture romantique anglaise et les Préraphaélites, exhibition catalogue, Petit Palais, Paris 1972, p.[190] under no.276.
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.146 under no.524.
1975
Graham Reynolds, Turner 1775–1851: zhivopis', risunok, akvarel', exhibition catalogue, Hermitage Museum, Leningrad 1975, p.43 under no.65.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.261 under no.414, 271 under no.426.
1985
Barry Venning, ‘Turner’s Whaling Subjects’, The Burlington Magazine, vol.127, February 1985, p.75, p.[81] fig.13.
1845
Robert Upstone, Turner: The Final Years: Watercolours 1840–1851, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1993, reproduced in colour p.30, p.59 no.52, as ‘Whalers Boiling Blubber’, c.1845, reproduced.
1998
James Hamilton, Turner and the Scientists, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1998, p.140 no.91, as ‘Burning Blubber’, mid 1840s, fig.113 (colour).
1845
David Blayney Brown, Turner in the Tate Collection, London 2002, p.162, pl.116 (colour), as ‘Whalers (Boiling Blubber)’, c.1845.
1845
Alison Hokanson in Thomas P. Campbell and Hokanson, Turner’s Whaling Pictures, exhibition catalogue (reprinted from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol.73, no.4, Spring 2016), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2016, p.[36] fig.35 (colour), as ‘Whalers Boiling Blubber’, c.1845, p.37.
This drawing, depicting the boiling of blubber for processing into oil, has been related to the oil painting Whalers (Boiling Blubber) Entangled in Flaw Ice, Endeavouring to Extricate Themselves (Tate N00547),1 which was the last of Turner’s paintings of the whaling industry.2 Turner was apparently motivated to paint whaling scenes after reading Thomas Beale’s The Natural History of the Sperm Whale (1839).
This is amongst the most vibrant and fully worked sketches belonging to the Whalers book. Its vigorously worked layers of watercolour and chalk aptly convey the atmospheric intensity of the fire and thick smoke generated from the processing of whale blubber.
Verso:
Blank; some slight dark offsetting from another leaf, and light brown, patchy staining at the left-hand, outer edge.
Amy Concannon
May 2025
How to cite
Amy Concannon, ‘Whalers Boiling Blubber c.1845’, catalogue entry, May 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2026, https://www
