Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
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Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Whalers Boiling Blubber Entangled in Flaw Ice Endeavouring to Extricate Themselves
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
agriculture and fishing
anchor
animals: fish and aquatic life
Arctic Circle
Beale, Thomas, ‘The Natural History of the Sperm Whale...’
boat, fishing
countries and continents
figure
group
groups
ice
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
natural phenomena
people
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sea
seascapes and coasts
ship, sailing
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<p>Whaling was a major British industry in Turner’s lifetime. Modernising cities used whale oil to light streets, and factories used it for oiling machinery. Whalers heated blubber to make oil. As Turner’s title indicates, this could also melt ice that had trapped whaling ships. The subject allowed Turner to show off his skill in creating atmospheric effects, from the glow of the fire on the left to the pale sunlight illuminating icebergs in the centre. Turner exhibited four paintings of whaling at the Royal Academy. He hoped, but ultimately failed, to sell these to a patron of his, Elhanan Bicknell, an investor in whaling industry.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
23 July 2001 – 16 June 2002
2002-06-16
23 July 2001 – 16 June 2002
2002-06-16
2001-07-23
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-07-23
Painting Seascapes
Collection based display
1 October 2007 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
1 October 2007 – 6 January 2008
2008-01-06
2007-10-01
National Gallery of Art (Washington DC, USA)
10 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
2008-02-10
Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, USA)
http://www.DallasMuseumofArt.org
23 June 2008 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
2008-06-23
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2007-10-01
JMW Turner
Tate partnerships & programmes
12 August 2009 – 27 July 2010
2010-07-27
12 August 2009 – 27 July 2010
2010-07-27
2009-08-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-12
Waves, Whalers and Wrecks
Collection based display
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
10 September 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
2014-09-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
24 February 2015 – 24 May 2015
2015-05-24
2015-02-24
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA)
20 June 2015 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
2015-06-20
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (San Francisco, USA)
http://www.famsf.org
2014-09-10
Late Turner: Painting Set Free
Exhibition
24 February 2015 – 31 January 2016
2016-01-31
24 February 2015 – 24 May 2015
2015-05-24
2015-02-24
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA)
20 June 2015 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
2015-06-20
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum
31 October 2015 – 31 January 2016
2016-01-31
2015-10-31
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
http://www.ago.net
2015-02-24
Late Turner
Loan-out
9 May 2016 – 7 August 2016
2016-08-07
9 May 2016 – 7 August 2016
2016-08-07
2016-05-09
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2016-05-09
Turner's Whalers
Loan-out
30 September 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
30 September 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
2017-09-30
Hull Maritime Museum (Hull, UK)
2017-09-30
Turner and the Whale
Loan-out
21 March 2018 – 10 January 2021
2021-01-10
1 October 2019 – 28 February 2020
2020-02-28
2019-10-01
Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, USA)
2018-03-21
Turner Watercolours
Tate partnerships & programmes
6 June 2019 – 18 August 2019
2019-08-18
6 June 2019 – 18 August 2019
2019-08-18
2019-06-06
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
2019-06-06
Impression, soleil levant
Loan-out
28 October 2020 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
28 October 2020 – 12 September 2021
2021-09-12
2020-10-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2020-10-28
Turner's Modern World
Exhibition
17 October 2021 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2021-10-17
Turner's Modern World
Loan-out
13 March 2023
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-03-13
Gallery 103
Collection based display
Whalers (Boiling Blubber) Entangled in Flaw Ice, Endeavouring to Extricate Themselves
support: 899 × 1200 mm
frame: 1288 × 1593 × 183 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<div class="text">
<p>Whaling was a major British industry in Turner’s lifetime. Modernising cities used whale oil to light streets, and factories used it for oiling machinery. Whalers heated blubber to make oil. As Turner’s title indicates, this could also melt ice that had trapped whaling ships. The subject allowed Turner to show off his skill in creating atmospheric effects, from the glow of the fire on the left to the pale sunlight illuminating icebergs in the centre. Turner exhibited four paintings of whaling at the Royal Academy. He hoped, but ultimately failed, to sell these to a patron of his, Elhanan Bicknell, an investor in whaling industry.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2023-10-25T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>426. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-whalers-boiling-blubber-entangled-in-flaw-ice-endeavouring-to-extricate-themselves-n00547" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00547</span></a>]<b> Whalers (boiling Blubber) entangled in Flaw Ice, endeavouring to extricate themselves</b> Exh. 1846</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (547)</p>
<p>Canvas, 35 3/8 × 47 1/4 (90 × 120)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (one of 76–78; see No. 414 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-whalers-n00545" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00545</span></a>]); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1929.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R. A. 1846 (494); Newcastle 1924 (161); New York 1966 (38, repr. p. 60); Edinburgh 1968 (13); <i><a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/v/victorian" title="Glossary definition for 'Victorian'"><span>Victorian</span></a> Paintings 1837–1890</i> Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield, September–November 1968 (1); Prague, Bratislava (149, repr.) and Vienna (57, repr.) 1969; <i>Discovery of Harmony</i> Expo Museum of Fine Arts, Osaka, March–October 1970 (IV-228, repr.); Paris 1972 (276, repr.); Dresden (24, repr. in colour on cover) and Berlin (35) 1972; Lisbon 1973 (24, repr.); R.A. 1974–5 (524, repr.); Leningrad and Moscow 1975–6 (65, repr.).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 349; 1877, p. 467; Bell 1901, p. 156 no. 260; Armstrong 1902, p. 236; Falk 1938, p. 185; Davies 1946, p. 187; Finberg 1961, pp. 413, 510 no. 578; Wilton 1979, pp. 213–14, 222; Wilton 1980, pp. 97, 153; Venning 1985.</p>
<p>As John McCoubrey has pointed out (in a lecture at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore on 18 April 1975) Greenland whalers did not boil blubber on board ship, unlike the sperm whalers of the South Seas described by Thomas Beale in his chapter XIV on‘Of the “Cutting in” and “Trying out”’ (<i>Natural History of the Sperm Whale</i> 1839, p. 187; for Beale as a source of Turner's whaling pictures see Nos. 414 [<span>N00545</span>], 415 and 423 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-hurrah-for-the-whaler-erebus-another-fish-n00546" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00546</span></a>]). McCoubrey suggests that Turner's interest in the contrast between cold ice and the dramatic glow created by boiling blubber was inspired in part by the description of ‘trying-out’ in F.D. Bennett's <i>Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe ... with an Account of Southern Wales, the Sperm Whale Fishery</i> 1840, pp. 211–12. The same book also contains a comparison between the sperm whale and the Arctic or Greenland whale (pp. 213–22). Turner's interest in the Arctic, which was also reflected in his reference to the ‘Erebus’ in the title to No. 423, may have been spurred by F. W. Beechey's <i>A Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole ... to which is added, a Summary of all the Early Attempts to Reach the Pacific by Way of the Pole</i> 1843. This contains several descriptions of ships forcing their way through flaw and ‘brush’ ice and being trapped. John Gage (exh. cat., Paris 1972) has suggested a further possible source in the Rev. Thomas Gisborne's <i>Walks in a Forest</i> 1794, which includes a description of Monk's expedition of 1619 lighting fires on the ice to unfreeze barrels of gin. Indeed it is possible, as Judy Egerton has pointed out, that Turner's apparent inaccuracy in showing Greenland whalers boiling blubber was done deliberately, to show them using this means to thaw out the ice.</p>
<p>Barry Venning, who sees this picture as the second of a pair depicting whaling in the Arctic, sees the action as the pessimistic conclusion of that begun in No. 423 [<span>N00546</span>], <i>q.v.</i>: while the crew have been boiling the blubber seen being removed from the carcass of the whale in the companion picture, the ship has become frozen in the ice, as in the disastrous winters of 1835–6 and 1836–7. However, whereas the two whaling pictures of 1845 were both exhibited in the East Room, the two of 1846 were hung one in the East Room, the other in the West Room, which implies that even if Turner had wanted them to be seen as companions, he had failed to get them hung as such.</p>
<p>Of the sketches in the ‘Whalers’ sketchbook two seem to show the dramatic effect of boiling blubber, while a third shows the same general <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> as the picture together with the detail of the anchor buried in the ice in the foreground (CCCLIII–6, 7 and 8).</p>
<p>After its abuse of ‘<i>Hurrah! for the Whaler Erebus</i>’ (see No. 423 [<span>N00546</span>]) the <i>Art Union </i>for June 1846 was relatively kind to this picture. ‘There is a charming association of colour here—the emerald green tells with exceeding freshness; but it would be impossible to define anything in the composition save the rigging of the ship’. The <i>Athenaeum</i> for 9 May, after mentioning Turner's usual ‘congeries of yellows, reds, and blues, ticketed with strange titles having no apparent connexion with the heaps of colour before us’, continued of this work that it presented ‘something ... more tangible ... one <i>can</i> make forms out of those masses of beautiful, though almost chaotic colours. The sea-green hue of the ice, the flicker of the sunbeam on the waves, the boiling of the blubber, and the tall forms of the ice-bound vessels, make up an interesting picture’.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults agriculture and fishing anchor animals: fish and aquatic life Arctic Circle Beale, Thomas, ‘The Natural History of the Sperm Whale...’ boat, fishing countries and continents figure group groups ice literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) natural phenomena people places sea seascapes and coasts ship, sailing smoke society transport: water weather whale whaler work and occupations