Basque whaling in pictures, 16th-18th century

 BARTHELMESS, Klaus: “Basque whaling in pictures, 16th-18th
century”, Itsas Memoria. Revista de Estudios Marítimos del País
Vasco, 6, Untzi Museoa-Museo Naval, Donostia-San Sebastián,
2009, pp. 643-667.
Basque whaling in pictures, 16th-18th century
Klaus Barthelmess
Whaling Research Project
Cologne, Germany
INTRODUCTION: THE STUDY OF WHALING IMAGES
The popular imagery of historic pictorial media such as prints and drawings has long been neglected
by mainstream historians. Doubting their source value, they tended to leave the study of these works
of art to art historians. Only the art commissioned by sovereigns and rulers for explicit purposes of
pictorial documentation of important political or social events (e.g. battles, festivities) or technological achievements (esp. for warfare) was deemed to have sufficient source value to merit study. Maritime historians tended to do likewise.
It seems that two developments had to coincide to change this. On the one hand, a quantitative
increase in the history of collecting needed to include a larger segment of society. In antiquity, potentates and temple priests had amassed treasuries and menageries. Medieval feudal lords followed in
that tradition. In the Age of Discovery, sovereigns strove to “hold the world in their hands“ by assembling in their private chambers of curiosities intricate models of the ever-widening cosmos, or –more
commonly– individual objects originating from it. Macrocosmos in microcosmo was the motto. With
the emancipation of bourgeois classes, wealthy merchants imitated the collecting fad of Renaissance
nobility and built their own Wunderkammern. These are the origin of our museums1. In modern
times, collecting spread to ever more strata of society, and the fields of collecting became less exclusive. Some people built collections of maritime prints.
The second development was advances in printing technology, which allowed for less costly
reproductions of images. There were now so many fellow collectors and other people interested in
the study of maritime prints collections, that illustrated catalogues found a ready market. This happened in the 1920s. And it happened in countries whose navies had played a certain role in winning the First World War, viz Great Britain and the USA. Here, there was a wide popular support for
things naval and maritime, both current and historic2.
Coincidently, the first substantial catalogue of whaling prints was also published in this decade:
George Francis Dow’s Whale ships and whaling. A pictorial history of whaling during three centuries,
which appeared in 1925, the year the last US-American sailing whaleship returned from sea with a
cargo of whale oil. With its 207 illustrations, it marks the beginning of the comprehensive study of
historic whaling images3.
Over the ensuing decades, the study of whaling images was characterized only by small publications such as exhibition or sale lists. It seems that individual collectors such as Gerrit Jan Honig (18641955), Allan Forbes (1874-1955), and Henry P. Kendall (1878-1959) were the driving forces behind
these pamphlets. A turning point was marked by the publication of Marion V. and Dorothy Brewington’s two fully illustrated catalogues of fine art in the Kendall Whaling Museum collection: Kendall
Whaling Museum Paintings, 1965, and Kendall Whaling Museum Prints, 1969, the latter with almost
600 superbly reproduced prints.
It is, however, a 30-page German article published in 1968, which can be regarded as the commencement of the scholarly study of iconographic interrelationships in whaling prints, paintings and
applied arts: Joachim Münzing’s paper on European Arctic whaling in 17th and 18th-century prints,
1. BREDEKAMP, 2000; CHECA, 1985; GROTE, 1995; IMPEY, 1983; KENSETH, 1991; LUGLI, 1983; WALZ, 2000.
2. ANON., 1928; MACPHERSON, 1924.
3. Previously, there had been a few minor exhibition lists and illustrated monographs containing reference to varying quantities of whaling
prints: Peabody Academy of Science, 1908, 10 pp. State Street Bank (ed.), 1915, 63 pp. TRIPP, 21920. 24 pp. SHEPPARD, 71920.
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which was followed by four books on the subject4. In the footsteps of Münzing (1936-2000) and the
Brewingtons (M.V.B. 1902-1974; D.B. 1904-1989), a number of monographs and catalogues have dealt
with historic whaling images, some as elaborately annotated inventories of substantial collections, such
as the Francis B. Lothrop (1898-1986) Whaling Collection, masterfully presented by Elisabeth Ingalls in
1987, some with a narrower thematic focus, such as the whaling prints known to the author of MobyDick, or images of stranded whales, or early modern illustrated broadsides and pamphlets on cetaceans5.
All these works have focused on the printed art of whaling nations like the Netherlands, Great
Britain, Germany, France and the USA. During different phases of world whaling history, they were
important. During the same phases, they also had well-developed printing industries serving markets
where whaling prints were in a certain demand. In fact, in some of them, such as the Netherlands
and Germany, the seaports from which the whaling ships hailed, were the nation’s economic hubs,
which also attracted artists and print shops.
BASQUE WHALING IN PICTURES
Though there was printing in the Basque country in the 1500s6, it appears that – for reasons which
are beyond the scope of this paper – the demand for prints showing the vernacular/domestic whale
fishery was not as pronounced as in other whaling nations. Pictorial representations of Basque whaling are thus fairly uncommon.
Notable exceptions, to be discussed in a future paper, are the heraldic depictions with stylized whaling motifs featured in the medieval and Renaissance coats-of-arms and town seals of the Basque
ports of Bermeo, Lequeitio, Ondarroa, Motrico, Guetaria, Fuenterrabía and Biarritz7, and the façade
or lintel stones with ships and big fish / whales in Zarauz8, Ondarroa9 and Rentería10.
Notable too are the illustrated broadsides after Laureano Gordón and Monedero of a juvenile right
whale (Eubalaena glacialis) captured off the Basque coast in 185411, but these will not be discussed
here either.
The small quantity of two dozen pictorial representations of Basque whaling discussed in this article is
the result of almost 40 years of studying whaling art during which an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 images
were encountered, about two thirds of which were documented in some form or other in this author’s
files. The list is limited to images from the 16th to the 18th century. Most of them are – if not downright
fanciful – derivative, i.e. their whale and whaling motifs are taken from earlier pictures. Prototypes and
precursor images are discussed in the pertaining entries. In view of centuries of Basque whaling activity it
is amazing that the first authentic pictorial representation of it, which was based on an artist’s actual
autopsy, was not made until the very end of the fishery: it is a German etching of the capture of a cowcalf pair off Castro Urdiales – 10 km west of the Basque border – in 1739. It is hoped that this article may
stimulate the search for and publication of more pictorial representations of Basque whaling operations.
Caveat
Modern viewers of historic images must bear in mind that artists are not necessarily eyewitnesses of
the scenes they draw. More commonly, they translate a “textual“ description they hear or read into
a “visual notion“, an image. And a lot of “imagination“ goes into this creative process. Therefore,
historic depictions cannot be regarded as being as documentary in character as photographs.
4. MÜNZING, 1968, 1975, 1978, 1987. BARTHELMESS & MÜNZING, 1991.
5. INGALLS, 1987; FRANK, 1986; BARTHELMESS & MÜNZING, 1991; SLIGGERS & WERTHEIM, 1992; FAUST, BARTHELMESS & STOPP, 2002.
6. Michael M. Barkham, pers. comm.
7. ALDABALDETREKU, 1998; GONZALEZ ECHEGARAY, 1978, pp. 26, 31, 33, 35, 39; CIRIQUIAIN GAIZTARRO, 1954; CIRIQUIAIN GAIZTARRO, 1961, p. 69. GRAELLS, 1889, lámina VIII; BERRAONDO, 1932; IRANZO & DEGAGE, 1988; RUSPOLI, 1972, p. 16. A 1604 ink drawing of
the coat-of-arms of Fuenterrabía is reproduced in UNSAIN, 1999, p. 98. Two lovely, 16th-century drawings of the coat-of-arms of Motrico are
reproduced in UNSAIN, 1995, p. 57, and GRENIER & al, 2007, vol. I., p. 28 and 43.
8. CIRIQUIAIN GAIZTARRO, 1961, p. 70; AZPIAZU, 2000, p. 88. Also see RUSPOLI, 1972, p. 15, for the outline drawing of the tombstone
of harpooner Martin de Mendicabal, 1660, with a stylized harpoon.
9. AZPIAZU, 2000, p. 59.
10. UNSAIN, 1995, p. 54; GARAT, 1998, p. 25. Most scholars favour the interpretation of the “fish“ beneath the nao on the Renteria lintel
stone as cod, though.
11. GRAELLS, 1889, lámina I, Fig. 2; VALDES HANSEN, 2008.
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Before the mid- or late 1700s, we know of no professionally trained artist who witnessed any
whaling operations12. Artists normally did not understand the description of the tools of whaling, nor
the special activities involved in killing and processing a whale. Harpoons thus are often depicted as
arrow-like darts. Even when an artist has seen a whaleboat in port, and depicts it roughly correctly,
he may put too many or too few people in it, they may be seated wrongly, and the harpooning
action may be represented in an incorrect way. Not to mention the whale! Hardly a professional artist
before the 1700s had ever seen a living whale at sea13. Invariably, they all gave a very personal interpretation of a Great Fish, often with monstrous features. After all, big, monstrous beasts have to
have big mouths with appropriately big teeth, don’t they? There are a few examples, where we can
safely say that the artist obviously had seen right whale baleen, which since the Middle Ages was a
trade commodity of the Basque whale fishery. In two of the images presented below, we recognize
baleen-shaped features anatomically associated with the mouth of the Great Fish, either suggesting
a moustache or a pair of tusks.
Great caution is therefore advised in interpreting historic depictions as documentary evidence per
se. In a careful, critical analysis, any insights derived from a historic whaling image must be corroborated by other sources!
THE WHALING SCENE ON DESCELIERS’S WORLD MAP OF 1546
The earliest depiction of commercial whaling hitherto known is the cartographic vignette on Pierre
Desceliers’s manuscript world map of 1546, positioned near the coasts of Newfoundland and
Labrador (illus 1). It was formerly known as the “Dauphin map“, because King François I had it made
for the Dauphin14, later King Henri II of France. There are discrepant biographical data for the cartographer, Pierre Desceliers of Arques near Dieppe, viz. 1487-1553 in older sources and ca. 1500?1558? in more recent ones, based on the date of 1558 on a map exhibited in 1875 but now lost. His
world map of 1546 measures 126 x 256 cm and is preserved in the John Rylands University Library in
Manchester. Between 1842 and 1862 the French company Jomard produced a lithographic facsimile. However, the lithographer took significant liberty “enhancing“ the map in areas where the original is faded and unclear. Unfortunately, this is the case with the whaling vignette too. Martijn & al.
have pointed out that the “embellishing“ retouches here led to changes which have induced
researchers to misinterpret the scene as one showing native whaling operations. In all, four ethnic
groups have been discussed as being represented in this vignette. The fact that Basque whaling technology, boat building and clothing are not represented in a coherently realistic way either is not conclusive of this not having been the artist’s intention15. The fanciful rendering of the whalers’ prey
gives a clue to the creative processes involved in producing artwork of subjects the artist has not seen
and does not properly understand. The artist “knew“ the following: the whale is a big “fish“ that
often swims at the surface, where people in boats may harpoon it. He also “knew“ that an important commodity yielded by whales is their “beard“.
In most languages, such as Old Norse, Japanese, Russian, and several Germanic vernaculars, the
word for “baleen“ is etymologically related to the word for “beard“. The very similar keratinous
quality of baleen slabs and bristles as they are found on the market and (beard) hair as well as the
“knowledge“ that both grow somewhere near the jaws may be assumed to play a role in giving
baleen its name. Barbas or barbes is recorded in 18th century Spanish or French, respectively16.
12. BARTHELMESS, 2007, pp. 2-3. There were a few skilled, amateur artists, such as Hamburg shipboard surgeon Friedrich Martens, who
went whaling in 1671 and produced highly documentary images; see MARTENS, 1675.
13. A few had seen stranded whales. And even they made mistakes representing certain physical features without understanding their anatomical function. As Gombrich has shown in his seminal book on Art and illusion (1978, p. 101f), the famous Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius
(1558-1617) represented the flipper of a sperm whale stranded on the coast near Scheveningen in 1598 as an external ear; BARTHELMESS &
MÜNZING, 1991, p. 38.
14. Since 1110, Guigue IV, Count of Albon in the Viennois held the by-name Delphinus, and the heraldic dolphin motif featured in the
family’s coat-of-arms since the 12th century. When in 1349 Count Imbert II ceded his hereditary territory of the Dauphiné to the heirless King
Philippe IV of Valois, it was under the condition that the French successor to the throne carry the title of the Dauphin du Viennois. From then on
until 1844 the successor to the French throne had the by-name dauphin. FRASER, 1977.
15. MARTIJN & al, 2003.
16. VALMONT DE BOMARE, 1764; SAÑEZ REGUART, 1792. The Romance etymological origin of “baleen“ is related to the Greek and Latin
words for “whale“ (phalaina, balaena): eg balon in a French-language document of 1284 in England, baleynen in Dutch sources since 1614, but also
as synonyms in 18th-century Spanish and French (ballenas, baleines) in the same sources that mention barbas and barbes; see BARTHELMESS, 2006.
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Accordingly, Desceliers presented a giant “fish“ with an elongated, snake-like body in the iconographic tradition of antique “sea dragons“17. The fish sports a huge moustache roughly in the shape
of two horizontal right whale baleen slabs. The artist may have known the looks of baleen slabs from
the baleen trade. The big moustached fish is swimming on the surface of the sea where a five-man
crew in a boat propelled by oars and steered by a helmsman sitting in the stern, handling a long
steering oar, attacks it. The second man in the boat is standing, facing the whale and poising a large
projectile in the shape of a stylized arrow. A slack line passes through the left hand of the man and
appears to be attached to the end of the projectile. Two “arrows“ with “feathers” on their ends
–about the same size as the projectile in the harpooner’s right hand– are already stuck in the whale’s
back, with thin lines trailing from the ends to the boat’s bow. The fourth man in the boat is equally
standing and facing the Great Fish. He is holding what appears to be a longbow. As we have no
source as to the use of bow and arrow in Basque whaling18, this has been a puzzling factor in interpreting the scene. But since the quintessential head of the harpoon is usually described as “barbed
or shaped like an arrow“, artists “translating“ textual descriptions of this technically little understood
projectile into a “visual notion“, have often interpreted the harpoon ”coherently“ with arrow-like
“feathers“ at the rear end19. Therefore, from an art historian’s point of view, the technically wrong
depiction of bow and arrow as whaling weapons is not a disturbing inconsistency.
Together with a three-masted ship riding at anchor, the scene was located by the cartographer off
the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, where Basque shore whaling activities have been documented since the 1530s20.
THE INK SKETCHES IN THE ZUMARRAGA BAPTISMAL REGISTER, CA. MID-16TH CENTURY
Of unknown date are two ink sketches jotted on separate pages of the baptismal register kept in the
town of Zumarraga (diocese of San Sebastián) since 1526. The pictures are certainly not contemporary with the first entry made in that year and are roughly dated to the 16th or mid-16th century21.
The first one of the very sketchy ink drawings (illus 2) shows a stylized, very “fishy” whale with a
“beak” and two “fin”-like extensions on the back and belly, which may possibly be breast flippers
“twisted” by the artist by 90° to show that the whale has more than merely a tail “fin”. A schematic harpoon is laid over its silhouette, and a line passes from the harpoon to a boat in the wake of the
whale. It is an open, double-ended boat with high stems and a crew of seven. Oars are not visible. It
appears that the harpoon line passes from the bow by all seven crewmembers and ends in a box- or
tub-like structure near the stern stem, but this detail is very unclear. Caution is advised against interpreting this detail as indicative of a line conduct known from 19th-century pelagic “South Sea“ or
“Moby-Dick-style“ whaling, where the harpoon line ran from “chocks“ in the bow stem over all
thwarts to a loggerhead in the stern of the whaleboat22. By this ingenious arrangement the whaleboat was rather “pushed“ than “pulled“ when under tow of the harpooned prey, and hauling in the
line by the entire crew, to bring the boat close to the exhausted whale, was also greatly facilitated.
There is no source as to this line conduct being practised in the European Arctic whale fishery from
the 17th to the 19th centuries, which was influenced by Basque technology. In European Arctic
whaling, the harpoon line was normally belayed with two turns around the high bow stem of the
whaleboat23.
The other one of the two sketches –doubtlessly by the same hand– shows a whale, slightly different in shape, to which two boats are fast by harpoons and lines (illus 3). In neither of the boats
oars are visible. Here, too, it seems as if the harpoon lines pass from the bow stem to some structure
17. EHRENSTEIN, 1923, pp. 699-721.
18. Crossbow whaling is only known from other whaling cultures, and some of the sources may even be apocryphal; see CREDLAND,
1978/1979, and in preparation.
19. See eg, Bol and Galle’s etching discussed below.
20. HUXLEY, 1984; HUXLEY, 1987b; BARKHAM, 2009, pp. 236-237.
21. MURUGARREN, 1981; UNSAIN, 1995, p. 56, gives the first colour reproductions of these drawings. GRENIER & al. (eds.), 2007, vol. I,
p. 53 & vol. IV, p. 310; see UNSAIN, 2008, p. 183, for a re-drawing by José Luis Casado.
22. ANSEL, 1978, p. 47.
23. LABURU, 1983; DE JONG, 1982, pp. 11-12; VAN BEYLEN, 1986, pp 102- 108; VAN BEYLEN, 1988, p. 46; BEYERMAN, 1999, p. 3; BARTHELMESS, 2003, p. 71. In 19th-century British Arctic whaling, the harpoon line was often belayed on a loggerhead in the bow of the whaleboat, see SCORESBY, 1820, vol. 2, p. 245. Norwegian and British bottlenose whaleboats of the late 19th also often had a loggerhead in the
bow, see the Peterhead bottlenose whaleboat in the Musée Océanographique, Monaco.
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in the stern. Above the whaling scene, there is an artist’s finger exercise of some flowing ink strokes
roughly in the shape of a similar whale.
The crude Zumarraga ink jottings are the only authentic folk-art depictions of Basque whaling
operations hitherto known.
THE WHALING DRAWING AND TAPESTRIES OF THE BAYONNE WATER FESTIVAL OF 1565
Basque shore whaling also was highlighted in the famous Bayonne water festival of 24 June 1565.
The festival was master-minded by Catherine de’ Medici (1519-1589), queen consort of Valois King
Henri II of France (coincidently, the dedicatee of Desceliers’s “Dauphin map“) and –following his
death in 1559– queen mother or regent, respectively, of her short-lived sons, Kings François II,
Charles IX, and Henri III. Her daughter Elisabeth was married to King Felipe II of Spain. In 1565, a
Spanish-French alliance, drafted but never realized, was to be celebrated between the royal houses
of Valois and Habsburg. The families royal met at the mutual border on the Bidasoa river by the sea
in the Basque country, 30 km southwest of Bayonne. Florence-born queen mother Catherine
designed the pertaining festivities after the pattern of the sumptuous Medici and French festivals. To
realize the pompous event, she went to incredible expenses, taking up a credit of 700,000 Écus from
a Florence bank. For a festive banquet on the Île d’Aguineau in the Bidasoa river the royal guests
boarded splendidly decorated barges. En route, they passed floating “chariots“ featuring motifs
from antique ocean mythology, such as Arion riding dolphins, Neptune in a scallop shell drawn by
hippocamps, or tritons recoiling on the carapace of a giant sea turtle. Doubtlessly inspired by the
Basque whale fishery practised in the area, there also was a floating whale model being attacked by
heroically costumed crews throwing harpoons or darts from three fanciful boats. Pierre de Bourdeille,
seigneur de Brantôme (1540-1614), an eyewitness, states that the model whale suitably spouted red
wine from two blowholes24. Needless to say, this imitated the blood spray exhaled from the pierced
lungs of a lanced right whale.
Catherine de Medici’s mock whaling scene is represented in a drawing by her valet and court
painter Antoine Caron (1521-1599; illus 4). Art historians date it around 1573, some eight years
after the event. It is one of six drawings of several festivities presumed to have been commissioned
by Catherine as patterns for tapestries25.
In fact, around 1580/81, Caron’s drawings were re-interpreted by Ghent artist Lucas van Heere
(1534-1584) for eight tapestries manufactured in Antwerp. Lucas changed Caron’s composition and
added royal figures dominating the foreground. One of the eight tapestries, preserved at the Uffizi in
Florence, features Catherine de’ Medici’s 1565 mock whaling scene from the Bidasoa river.
Another tapestry, roughly dated to the second half of the 16th century, and perhaps produced in
Brussels, displays a similar scene (illus 5). Surrounded by an elaborate border and background field of
floral, architectural, mythological, grotesque and exotic (an elephant) motifs, a central, hexafoil
escutcheon contains a riverine seascape or harbour scene. The foreground is made up of a grassy
bank with theatrically clad men and women. The background shows a hilly shoreline with Mediterranean-looking architecture, i.a. the colonnade of a palazzo-type building, and a river mouth or port
entrance. A big fish in the iconographic tradition of Renaissance dolphins26 dominates the centre.
With raised tail flukes, it lies in the shallow tidal zone of the shore in the foreground. Tiny men on its
back are busy chopping it up with hatch knives. From the shore, people are leaning a ladder upon its
back. There are several boats on the water, most theatrically fanciful, some with mast and sail. From
the bows of three of them in the foreground, lines pass to the great fish or are being made fast to it.
This is clearly a whale-flensing scene. Unclear it is, whether it is to represent shore-whaling operations in an imaginative iconography, or if it is to commemorate a water festival, mock whale-flensing scene as in the tapestry after Caron’s sketch. It is also possible that it shows a later stage of
Catherine’s pompous celebration on Aguineau Island in 1565. Regrettably, we have no full record of
the culinary details of the festival as far as the whale model is concerned. But if Brantôme already
24. KNECHT, 1998.
25. PROVIDENCE, 1979, pp. 62-64, No. 31.
26. AVERY, 2009.
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notes red wine being pumped from the spout holes, one should not be surprised if Catherine’s
directing skills designed the whale model also to “act“ as a serving “tray“ for tastily prepared meat
in a theatrical “flensing“ scene after a dramatic “hunt“. If so, the food might perhaps even have
been delicious whale meat, or rather whale tongue, for which there was an old culinary tradition in
the Basque country27. Further research on this remarkable tapestry in the collection of Roland de la
Poype, Marineland, Antibes, is thus desirable28.
Between the Bayonne water festival of 1565 and the creation of the Valois tapestries around
1580/81, another image claiming to depict Basque shore whaling operations was published.
PARÉ’S WHALE-FLENSING SCENE, 1573
In 1564 Ambroise Paré (1509/10-1590), surgeon to the French royal court, was sent by 15-year-old
King Charles IX from Bayonne to Biarritz to attend Charles de Bourbon, Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon
(1515-1565), who had fallen sick in that little town. No later than 1351, Biarritz displayed a whaling
scene in its town seal, testifying to the antiquity and economic importance of its shore whaling activities. At the time of Paré’s visit, the town was still prepared for the occasional right whale frequenting its inshore waters. Paré describes whaling logistics and operations, apparently not from autopsy,
but rather from hearsay and from Rondelet (1554, 1558)29. Whaling infrastructure and equipment
such as the atalaya or vigie, ie the lookout turret on the Biarritz promontory, the boats, harpoons and
lines, however, were actually seen by Paré and probably also products of the whale fishery, such as
the salted whale tongue, blubber, baleen, and bones. As for baleen, he states that skirt hoops, corset
stays, knife handle grips and other commodities are made from it. Concerning the huge skeletal
bones, Paré notes that country people make fences from them (probably from the big jawbones, perhaps also from the ribs30) and steps, stools and chairs from the vertebrae. He even obtained one of
those whale vertebra chairs for his own home31.
In the first and second editions of his collected works, Paré’s Paris publishers André Wechel, 1573,
and Gabriel Buon, 1575, respectively, used a woodblock illustration showing the cutting-up of a harpooned whale lying half ashore. It is a copy rather than an original illustration and is based on earlier prototypes of non-Basque whaling, which the woodcut carver modified for Paré’s purposes (illus
6). The fanciful whale-flensing scene had by then already developed an iconographic tradition originating in 153932. The immediate prototype copied was the woodcut by Franz Oberrieter in Konrad
Gesner’s Nomenclator of 156033. But Paré’s woodblock cutter made two remarkable changes from
the iconographic tradition. One of them is that an anchor, which in the pictorial tradition is shown to
secure the whale ashore, with its anchor flukes piercing the creature’s blubber, is replaced by two
harpoons toggling the whale’s skin like a cloak pin a fold of garment.
Though the depiction of the harpoons themselves is unrealistic, they are understandable visualisations of textual descriptions of harpoons. Since Albertus Magnus’s explanation of the main whaling weapon in his manuscript De animalibus of ca. 1258/60, the harpoon is described as a piercing
weapon with a triangular, barbed, arrow-shaped head, a shank, and with a foramen at the end34.
The Latin word foramen is usually translated as “hole“, “opening“ or “cavity“, and presumably was
intended to describe the socket at the end of the iron harpoon shank, into which the wooden harpoon pole was inserted. The standard way of attaching the harpoon line securely to the harpoon iron
in later centuries was by laying two turns of line around the shank above the socket and splicing the
loose end into the long one35. The spliced turns form a double “eye“ or “rope ring“, which firmly
“grabs“ the conical socket, when strain is put on the line. The wooden harpoon pole is just a handle
for the harpooner and is discardable once the harpoon is planted in the whale blubber. Be it that
27. BARTHELMESS, 2005; PARÉ, 1573, after CÉARD, 1971, p. 123.
28. SCOTT-PAOLINI, 1994.
29. CÉARD, 1971, p. 193.
30. BARTHELMESS, 2008.
31. CÉARD, 1971, p. 123.
32. BARTHELMESS & CLAUDE, in preparation.
33. GESNER, 1560, p. 176.
34. STADLER, vol. 2, 1920, p. 1524. This invaluable manuskript has survived the collapse of the historical archive of Cologne on 3 March
2009 in only slightly damaged condition!
35. FOTHERBY, 1613, in HAVEN, 1860, pp. 305-306; LYTLE, 1984, pp. 17-20.
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“foramen“ either meant the iron harpoon socket or the rope “ring“ passed around the shank, the
artist of the Paré woodcut translating the textual description into a “visual notion“ depicted a chainlink-shaped “ring“ at the end of the harpoon shaft. As in Albertus’s description, he shows the harpoon line attached to this ring. This first “technical“, though unrealistic pictorial representation of a
Basque whaling harpoon had been published in Guilleaume Rondelet’s fish books of 1554 (Latin edition)36 and of 1558 (French edition)37, and was copied by Paré’s woodcut artist.
The other change from the established iconographic tradition is two single slabs of long baleen
protruding in a tusk-like curve from the angles of the whale’s mouth. It would appear that someone
who had seen dried right whale baleen fronds, had given the artist a description, so that this trade
commodity could at least be shown in its approximate verisimilitude and in an anatomical position
that is at least associated with the mouth cavity and not with the “moustache“.
THEVET’S WHALE-FLENSING SCENE, 1575
In the same year that Paré’s second edition came off the press, in 1575, the French cosmographer
André Thevet published his description of the world. To illustrate French and Spanish Basque whaling, his woodcut artists produced a lively whale-processing scene (illus 7). Whale morphology and
flensing operations are as in Gesner’s prototype, including the anchor, the teats of the whale, boat,
barrels, bagpiper and ladder. The scenic foreground and background are elaborately detailed. This
lively picture presumably appealed more to contemporary tastes, so from the third, 1579, edition on,
Paré’s publishers copy Thevet’s whaling scene38.
BOL AND GALLE’S ENGRAVED WHALING SCENE, 1582
The first print to show organized, systematic whale hunting activity at sea is based on a drawing by
Flemish artist Jos Bol (1534-1593) (illus 8). It was first published in a series of hunting scenes by the
Antwerp publishing house of Filips Galle (1537-1612) in 158239. Various editions of the print series,
numbering between 48 and 54 plates, were issued in bound volumes under the title Venationes, piscationes et aucupii typi40, but without any typographic descriptive texts, besides the etched captions.
Thus, we do not know which contemporary text source, if any, inspired the Flemish artist to draw this
fanciful image41. His source might have been verbal: prior to the 1580s, some Basque whaling ships
are recorded as having sailed directly from Labrador to Antwerp to sell their cargoes of whale oil42,
and Bol may have been inspired by verbal account received directly or indirectly from these Basque
whalemen.
The Latin caption of the print gives no clue as to the whaling operations illustrated here either. It
translates as: “When the whales frolic and raise their immense bodies to the sea surface, they are
being killed by many little missiles“, and is thus very generic. There were printed travelogues and
works on natural history, which could have supplied Bol with descriptions of indigenous whaling or
commercial Basque whaling. There are indications for both possibilities. Most whalers are naked,
which conforms to European artistic traditions of depicting the “savage“, “uncivilized“ native. And
36. page 475. Rondelet claims to have received his information about whaling in part from Paré’s predecessor, surgeon to the French King
Henri II; p. 480. Here follows the Latin text: In singulis igitur cymbis deni collocantur robusti remiges, alij multa tela, longa cuspide hamata,
quorum figuram sub beluæ figura expressimus, in beluam coniiciunt, quibus infixis & altiùs inhærentibus funes longissimos telis relaxant, vsque
dum vitam cum sanguine fuderit, tunc vnà cum funibus balænam in litus retrahunt adiuti maris vndis, prædam partiuntur, cuius pars vnicuique
cedit pro telorum coniectorum copia, quæ propriis notis & insculptis internoscuntur. RONDELET, 1554, pp. 480-481.
37. page 351. Here follows the French text about the harpoon: ... les mariniers é pescheurs ... ont plusieurs nasselles, en chacune dix homes
forts pour bien ramer, plusieurs autres dedans auec dards tels que nous auons fait pourtraire pour [notre illustration de] la Balene, lesquelz de
toute leur force ils iettent sur la Balene, é laschent les chordes attachées aux dits dards, iusques à ce qu’elles aient perdu le sang é la vie. lors ilz
tirent la Balene en terre, é la partissent, chacun aiant sa part selon la quantité de dards qu’il aura ietté, qu’ilz reconnoissent à leurs merques.
RONDELET, 1558, p. 353.
38. CÉARD, 1971, pp. 193-194. BARTHELMESS & CLAUDE, in preparation.
39. BARTHELMESS & MÜNZING, 1991, pp. 30-32, 88-81. It was long maintained that the series of etchings was engraved by Filips Galle
himself, but the New Hollstein, Philips Galle (vol. IV, p. 250, R 20) only attributes the prints to Galle’s workshop.
40. “Hunting, fishing and types of bird-catching“, ANTWERP, 1582.
41. BARTHELMESS, 1982, No. 69a.
42. Michael M. Barkham, pers. comm.
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Klaus Barthelmess
though there are several details visually referring to European “civilisation“, such as clothing worn by
some other of the men, or Spanish morion helmets, a navigational beacon, barrels, European-style
ships and a city in the background, these do not unambiguously point to European whaling. (For
comparison, consider 16th-century Flemish paintings of biblical stories, which are set in European
landscapes, occidental architecture, and show people wearing clothes in western fashion). Nor do
the feathered arrows darted at the whales suggest that native whaling can be surmised. Here too, it
is reasonable to assume that the artist tried to translate the written description of an “arrowshaped“ harpoon (head) into the “visual notion“ of an entire arrow43.
As far as the whales are concerned, Barthelmess and Münzing have shown that their depiction is
derived from illustrated broadsides commemorating the stranding of three sperm whales in the
Schelde estuary on 2 July 157744. These broadsides were produced for sale by a travelling exhibition
company, which put the dried head and flukes of one of these sperm whales on show in the Low
Countries and Germany until at least 157845.
Whatever the geographical background for the whaling operations depicted by Bol and Galle’s
workshop in 1582, when the image was re-engraved ten or twelve years later for the cartographic
cartridge of Petrus Plancius’s map of the North Atlantic, the Latin caption clearly related the activity
to the coasts of Atlantic Canada: “Along the coasts of New France (Eastern Canada), many whales
come upon (or to) the dry land“46.
THE WATERCOLOURS IN ROBERT FOTHERBY’S WHALING JOURNAL OF 1613
European whaling in Arctic waters started in 1611 with two English vessels operating off Spitzbergen
(Svalbard). In 1612 Dutch and Spanish Basque whaleships entered the competition47. In 1613, seven
armed ships under charter of the London-based “Muscovy Company“ sailed to Spitzbergen to protect what they perceived as their whaling monopoly there. Several of the English ships had a total of
24 Basque whaling experts on board to teach the British, who were novices in this trade48. On board
one of the vessels, the MATTHEW, one Robert Fotherby sailed in the capacity of a “factor“ of the
“Muscovy Company“. It was his task to compile a journal or handbook on all practical aspects pertaining to whaling and whale processing. This manuscript, titled A Short Discourse of a Voyage made
in the Yeare of Our Lord 1613 to the Late Discovered Countrye of Greenland; and a Breife Discription
of the same Countrie, and the Com[m]odities ther raised to the Adventurers, numbers 21 leaves of
ca. 31 x 20 cm. Evidently finishing touches were made in late summer 1614. It is embellished with
eleven watercolour drawings, showing the process of whaling and processing whales in great detail.
Crude outline re-drawings of these watercolours were published in 186049. All eleven of them were
published in colour for the first time by Barthelmess in 1987, with a detailed discussion of their
iconographic influence on later prints of whaling50. Subsequently, Barkham and Barthelmess re-published nine of them in 200851. Here, two are reproduced again because of their documentary value
for the use of the “Biska shallop“ in operation (illus 9). It is clear that when the British hired Basque
whaling experts to train them, they also acquired Basque whaleboats. Given Fotherby’s introductory
remark about the “24 Basks, who are men best experienced in that facultie, [viz.] the killing of the
whale“52, it is reasonable to assume that not only their skills as harpooners and coopers were
required, but also their expertise in trying out whale oil. So the drawings and the description of
whale processing in the Fotherby journal probably reflect the entire state-of-the-art of Basque whaling in the early 17th century.
43. See n. 13. Lindquist’s speculation (1994, pp. 744-747) that the arrows in this engraving may be representations of the “darts“ or
“shots“ used in old Norse whaling, can be refuted with reference to art historical conventions, which he failed to consider, and to the fact that
there is no detailed, published account of that type of Norse whaling known, which could have served as an inspiration to the Flemish artist.
44. BARTHELMESS & MÜNZING, 1991, ibidem.
45. BARTHELMESS, 1998.
46. BARTHELMESS & MÜNZING, 1991, No. 12.
47. CONWAY, 1906, pp. 47-50.
48. HAVEN, 1860, p. 285, 288, 289, 302.
49. HAVEN, 1860, pp. 284, 304-313.
50. BARTHELMESS, 1987.
51. BARKHAM & BARTHELMESS, in UNSAIN, 2008, pp. 187-188. For a more detailed discussion of the context see BARKHAM, 2008.
52. HAVEN, 1860, p. 285.
650
HUMBELOT’S BROADSIDE OF 1658
In 1658, Paris engraver Jean-Baptiste Humbelot (1601/15-1678) produced a remarkable etching for
an illustrated broadside (illus 10). It was commissioned by the unidentified owner of a whale show.
The typeset text claims that this man had asked an agent to travel to Northern Norway and to
acquire a large whale for exhibition purposes. Presumably the agent went north with French whaleships. He was successful. In its bottom part Humbelot’s bi-partite etching shows an articulated whale
skeleton. The shape of the skull facilitates the taxonomic identification as a balaenid whale (Balaena
sp.). The measurements given in the text, 16-17 feet for the skull, plus 45 feet for the vertebral column, as well as 300 slabs of baleen, each frond being up to 9 feet long, also correspond to the zoological genus Balaena, as does the whaling ground, where right whales were the whalers’ target53.
The text furthermore identifies the whale as a female. The image is the second-oldest depiction of a
mounted whale skeleton known so far, and the earliest of a skeleton of this species54.
The whaling scene – which was not witnessed by Humbelot – probably is meant to show French
Basque whalers, who made many voyages to Northern Norway in those years. For example, at least
one of the ten documented French whaling voyages of 1658, that of the NOTRE DAME DE VIGOGNE
from Bayonne in the French Basque country, under Pierre Haraneder, master, was directed to Northern Norway55. Unlike the skeleton which Humbelot actually saw, the scene betrays more artistic
license. But at least the whaling method, showing a line connecting the harpoon with the boat, and
the location of the whaling ground near the coast, are essentially correct, though not realistic in
detail.
Broadsides are the precursors of our newspapers. Printed in runs of between a few hundred and
ca. 2,000 copies, they were sold for a price of approximately half a day’s income of an average craftsman to an often illiterate audience. After a while, when the gossip was well spread, many broadsides
suffered a fate similar to our newspapers: they were discarded. Therefore, all broadsides are
immensely rare today. This one is the only copy known to exist so far.
MALLET’S WHALING SCENE OFF ICELAND, 1683
Humbelot’s broadside, unique as it is today, nevertheless had its influence. Its whale motif was
copied by the anonymous engraver of plate 109 in Alain Manesson Mallet’s Description de l’Univers,
Paris, 1683. The plate shows the smoking volcano Hecla in Iceland, an imaginative coastal plain with
a tryworks base in the middle ground and a whaling scene in the foreground. Although the whale
motif is quite small and relatively crude, its body contour, shape of the head and mouth betray the
influence of Humbelot’s image (illus 11).
Does the engraving show Basque whaling? In the seventeenth century, several European nations
despatched whaling ships to exploit the whale-rich waters of Iceland, usually without the consent of
the Danish-Norwegian government, whose colony Iceland was. Spanish Basque whaleships may
have been in Icelandic waters by 1608, possibly as early as 1604. In October 1615 Icelanders in several locations of the Icelandic West fjords massacred over 30 survivors of a shipwrecked Basque
whaling crew under Martin de Villafranca of San Sebastián56. There are three Basque-Icelandic glossaries of the 17th century57, and in the 1670s and 1680s the odd French whaleship continues to sail
for Icelandic waters58. So, with Manesson Mallet and his editor being French, it is quite probable that
they had Basque whaling in mind when this etching was commissioned.
But other whaling nations cannot be ruled out. The tryworks base excavated since 2005 at
Strákatangi, Steingrímsfjörður, Northwest Iceland, was originally thought to be Basque, but after
some finds typical of Dutch whaling bases, such as clay pipes and certain types of brickwork, it is
now more carefully labelled as “foreign“ whaling station59. Louwrens Hacquebord of the Rijksuni-
53. SMITH, BARTHELMESS & REEVES, 2004.
54. FAUST, BARTHELMESS & STOPP, 2002, No. 582.
55. DU PASQUIER, 2000, p. 330.
56. EINARSSON, 1987; HUXLEY, 1987c; SIGURSVEINSSON, 1987; “Slaying of the Spaniards“, 2006.
57. OREGUI, 1987.
58. DU PASQUIER, 2000, ship list.
59. RAFNSSON & EDVARDSSON, 2008.
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Klaus Barthelmess
versiteit Groningen has reason to believe that crews of Rotterdam whaleships fitted out by Jacob
Sebastian Koel or Hendrick Meeuwsen Coel in the 1630s may have operated this tryworks base60.
Of this anonymous etching in Mallet’s 1683 Paris edition, a mirrored version was produced for the
Frankfurt 1685 edition by German engraver Johann Jacob Vogel61.
DE HOOGHE’S WHALING VIEW ON MORTIER’S MAP OF THE MEDITERRANEAN, 1694
The Carte nouvelle de la mer Mediterranée by Pierre Mortier (1661-1711), first published in his Amsterdam Atlas Maritime of 1694, is a large map with 38 small topographic views of Atlantic and
Mediterranean ports62. These views were etched by Amsterdam engraver Romein de Hooghe (16451708). One of them, on the top edge of the map, shows St. Sebastien63. It represents a fairly realistic
view of the bay of San Sebastián (illus 12). And it features a tiny whaling scene underneath the spectacular, castle-crowned Urgull Hill. The minute scene is very sketchy, but besides the unrealistic Great
Fish riding the waves in the fashion of other cartographic vignettes, the artist shows two rowboats
attacking the whale. They are each manned with a harpooner standing in the bow, a number of
oarsmen, and a helmsman in the stern. By the time De Hooghe executed this decorative detail, the
whaling journal by German shipboard surgeon Friedrich Martens († after 1675) had been published
in Hamburg in 1675 and Amsterdam in 1685, with several important and very realistic whaling
scenes engraved after excellent drawings prepared by the author. But it is doubtful that he used
these as a pattern. For, unlike Martens’s, De Hooghe’s whale is unrealistic, and so is his representation of the harpooner thrusting his weapon single-handed. At any rate, the little detail in his topographical view of San Sebastián illustrates the historic economic importance of the inshore whale
fishery there and the city’s identity as a whaling port.
A NUREMBERG ETCHING OF FOREIGN (BASQUE?) WHALING OFF NORTHERN NORWAY, 1701
”Customs, habits, interaction, and ways of life among the Lapps (Saami)“64 in Northern Norway are
illustrated in a very “crowded“, baroque etching engraved by Joseph de Montalegre after a drawing
by Johannes Degler (illus 13). It was published in Heinrich Scherer’s Atlas Novus in Nuremberg by
Homann Heirs in 170165. Almost hidden by a lively foreground scene featuring fur-clad Saami and a
Dutch trading vessel is a coastal whaling scene. The Latin text banner with this scene translates as
“When the whales are exhausted by attached barbed hooks, the fishermen catch them“66. It is the
Basque whaling method as it was copied by all European Arctic whaling nations.
As in Manesson Mallet, it is not clear whether Basque whalers are shown here. It may well be the
case, for documentary evidence testifies to substantial French (Basque and Norman) and Dutch whaling activity in Northern Norway. In 1612, three Dutch whaleships under French (presumably Basque)
charter intended to visit the North Norwegian right whaling ground in addition to the Spitzbergen
bowhead whaling ground, but there is no record whether they really went there67. Such a voyage
pattern was followed by another Dutch vessel under Franco-Basque charter in 161368. The next year,
Danish-Norwegian authorities were notified of a Spanish, doubtlessly Basque, whaleship at Kjelvik
Bay on the island of Magerø, as well as of another one, also no doubt Basque, at Knarvik on the
island of Hjelmsøy69. In 1615, a Spanish Basque whaleship from Motrico recorded Northern Norway
60. Pers. comm., in e-lit, 1 December 2008.
61. Beschreibung des gantzen Welt-Kreysses. Frankfurt, 1685.
62. The Mediterranean map was the first map in the Cartes Marines à l’usage du Roy de la Grande Bretagne or, in short, Atlas Maritime,
which was the second part to the Neptune François, an atlas published the year before, in 1693. Whereas the Neptune François –a copy of the
French Admiralty’s atlas– was intended for practical nautical use, the Atlas Maritime was a representation volume for libraries. In fact, it was the
most expensive and most lavishly decorated Dutch atlas until then; KOEMAN, IV, p. 424.
63. Thanks to José María Unsain and Michael Barkham for referring me to this image. See also UNSAIN, 2008, p. 65.
64. Lapponum mores, habitus, et conversandi ac vivendi ratio.
65. Atlas Novus. Hoc est: Geographia universa, in septem partes contracta. Nuremberg, Homann Heirs, 1701. The third and last edition
appeared with Bencard’s in Augsburg and Dillingen in 1737.
66. Ita infixis hamis fatigatas capiunt Balænas Piscatores.
67. GERRITSZ, 1924, S. 96.
68. DU PASQUIER, 2000, p. 55.
69. DALGÅRD, 1962, p. 46.
652
as its destination70. French vessels, both from Basque and Norman ports, went to the North Cape in
1615, 1617, 1618 and 1622. French whaling voyages to Norway became more frequent, with numbers reaching a peak in the 1640s-1660s. After this, they became less common, and the last one
occurred in 170171. These foreign whalers set up improvised tryworks stations at a minimum of 17
different locations along the North Norwegian shore72. But after French Basques commenced to try
out the whale blubber in on-board tryworks in 1635, offshore whaling à flot became more and more
common for French Basque whalers73.
Another indication that Basque whaling operations may have been in the minds of the artists
Degler and Montalegre, is provided by the Italian clergyman Francesco Negri (1623-1698), who travelled in Northern Norway in 1664/65, describing his trip in eight letters. In the posthumous edition
of his letters, the Viaggio settentrionale of 170074, Negri gives a detailed description of commercial
whaling operations which he was able to witness: whalers hunt their prey from boats manned with
six men, harpooning and lancing them until the animal is exhausted. (Especially the reference to
“exhaustion“ may suggest that Degler and Montalegre in 1701 used the book by Negri of 1700).
Negri continues describing the process of cutting-in the killed whale alongside the sailing ship and
boiling the blubber in a huge copper cauldron tryworks on board, which takes up almost all the
breadth of the deck, so that there is hardly room to pass by it. The height of the cauldron above the
deck reaches a man’s knee, according to Negri75. This unusual construction with the fire chamber
under deck, so different from the tryworks on board American whaleships, is illustrated in Duhamel
du Monceau’s etchings (see below). The Italian Negri in all probability was invited by the crew of a
French whaler, given that his trip coincided with the peak period of French presence in Northern Norway, and as there were very few experiments with tryworks on board the whaleships of European
whaling nations other than France76.
LILIENSKIOLD’S WATERCOLOUR “ON WHALING AND SALMON RIVERS”, CA. 1701-1703
Concerning the whaling scene, there is a certain compositional similarity between the etching in
Scherer and the watercolour in Hans Hansen Lil(l)ienskiold’s manuscript Speculum boreale (illus 14).
Both whaling scenes with sailing vessels and whaleboats are set in a bay surrounded by rocks and
mountains except for an opening at the top right. Lilienskiold (ca. 1650-1703) was a lawman and
served as district governor in the North Norwegian province of Finnmark between 1684 and 1701.
Between 1693 and 1703 he wrote his monumental manuscript Speculum boreale, in essence a
description of Northern Norway. It is embellished with many watercolour drawings by his own hand.
One of them heads the chapter “On whaling and salmon rivers“77. It cannot be determined whether
Basque whaling operations are shown here, as French whaling in the area ceased in 1701 after a
period of continuous decline78.
GUÉROULT’S ETCHING OF A “BISCAYENNE”, 1710
A decade later, the French artist and engraver Pierre-Jacob Guéroult du Pas (1654-1740) produced a
series of 29 etchings showing small marine craft, the Petits bâtimens de l’océan, published in Paris by
Giffart in 1710. Number 6 of the plates features a “Biscay boat, a small shallop belonging to the vessels that embark upon the whale fishery“ (illus 15)79. Appropriately, the little, double-ended craft is
shown “on the job“, with the harpooner standing in the bow ready to thrust his iron into the blu-
70. BARKHAM, 1990, p. 258
71. DU PASQUIER, 2000, pp. 50-52, 55, 67, 72, 321-399.
72. HACQUEBORD, 1988; JØRGENSEN, 1994, pp. 67-70; SMITH, BARTHELMESS & REEVES, 2004, Table 2.
73. DU PASQUIER, 2000, pp. 77-81; SMITH, BARTHELMESS & REEVES, 2004, p. 724.
74. NEGRI, 1700.
75. DAAE, 1887, pp. 149-153. The passage is misinterpreted by GJESSING, 1955, p. 26, as a description of Saami whaling methods.
76. HACQUEBORD, 1984, p. 145; BARTHELMESS & TOUGAARD, 1999, pp. 106-107.
77. Om Hvalfangst og Laxelver, vol. 2, 1701-1703, p. 637. The manuscript is preserved in the Finnmarksbibliotek, Vadsø, Norway. BARTHELMESS, 2003, p. 88.
78. SMITH, BARTHELMESS & REEVES, 2006, p. 724.
79. Biscayenne, petite Chaloupe des batimens qui vont à la Pesche de la Baleine. UNSAIN, 2008, p. 108.
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Klaus Barthelmess
bber of a small, snake-like, spouting whale. Guéroult may have had some rough sketches of a
Basque whaleboat’s lines, but probably not of the crew sitting in such a small boat.
FRANKFURT ETCHING OF THE CASTRO URDIALES RIGHT WHALES OF 27 NOVEMBER 1739
On 27 November 1739, a right whale cow and her calf were captured off the port of Castro Urdiales,
10 km west of the Basque country. This previously unrecorded catch may have been the last take of
whales by that seaport, which had long been involved in the whale fishery80.
So far, only German-language sources about this whale catch have become known. But their
detail and the fact that one report is accompanied by an etching, which betrays a hitherto unprecedented degree of realism, leave no doubt about its authenticity.
“Fair-relations“ (Messrelationen in German) are an early German form of news magazine preceding regular newspapers81. They appeared half-yearly, on the occasion of the spring and autumn
fairs at Frankfurt and Leipzig. In the form of an almanac, i.e. a calendar with news digest, they
assembled a worldwide range of newsworthy stories of interest to the merchants, traders and customers who congregated to do business at the spring and autumn fairs. A precursor, the Relatio
historica, was published in Cologne since 1583. In 1591, a Frankfurt publisher commenced
putting out the Relationis Historicæ Semestralis Vernalis [or Autumnalis] Continuatio, which
appeared twice a year until 1806. In Leipzig, semi-annual fair-relations were published between
1605 and 1730.
The Frankfurt fair-relation of spring 1740 ran the following news story in its section 12 with
remarkable and curious news: “Every year whales are caught in the distant northern seas. But it is
very uncommon that they venture into waters much warmer than those in the North. Yet, it has happened in November last, that a whale –together with its young one– appeared in the Biscayan Sea
near Castro Urdiales. The inhabitants immediately gave them chase in their vessels. They threw a harpoon into the body of the small one, thereby playing it in the water. This attracted its mother, which
likewise was deeply wounded with three harpoons. The sea was much agitated by the movements of
this monster, and tinged with blood a quarter of a mile around. Finally, after having smashed a vessel with twelve men to pieces with its tail, it was killed two miles off the local coast. 130 men busied themselves to bring these fish ashore. The tongue of the large fish is reported to have weighed
4,728 pounds, each of 17 ounces, the beard [baleen] 816 pounds, and the fat [blubber], which was
more than half an ell thick, yielded 21,600 pounds of train-oil. The big one was estimated to weigh
150,000 pounds, the young one 18,000 pounds. The eyes of the mother were not larger than the
eyes of a cow. The meat looked like dog meat, but tasted like beef, and was mostly pickled in salt
brine by the common people“82. In the autumn of the same year, the Hinkender Bote published in
the Swiss town of Basle ran more or less the same story, but gave a more precise date, viz the 27
November 173983. The textual transmission alone suggests that there probably was a detailed report,
perhaps an illustrated broadside, which was prepared by an eyewitness of the events described and
was perused by several “media“ of the time.
The Frankfurt fair-relation of spring 1740 also reproduced a most remarkable etching of the event
(illus 16). Unfortunately, it is unsigned. As far as the whales are concerned, the realism of the wha-
80. OJEDA, 2006.
81. The first daily newspaper was published in Strasbourg in 1605.
82. Relationis Historicæ Semestralis Vernalis Continuatio, ... Franckfurth am Mayn, Bey den Engelhardischen Erben, und auf dem grossen
Hirschgraben im Grünen Laub zu finden. Im Jahr 1740, p. 118: “Zwölffter Haupt Titul. Von denckwürdigen und seltsamen Geschichten. || Es
werden zwar alle Jahr in den entlegensten Nordischen Gewässern Wallfische gefangen, allein daß dergleichen See-Thiere sich auch in solche
Gewässer wagen, welche weit wärmer als die in Norden sind, solches ist etwas seltenes, und gleichwohl ist es dieses Jahr im Nov. geschehen,
da sich ein Wallfisch in dem Biscaischen Meer bey dem Hafen Carsto [sic!] de Urdeales [sic!] mit seinem jungen sehen liesse. Die Einwohner liefen sogleich mit Fahrzeugen auf den Fang aus, wurffen dem jungen Fisch einen Harpun in den Leib, und liessen ihn im Wasser also spielen,
wodurch die Mutter herbey gelocket wurde, welche man ebenfals mit 3 Harpunen sehr tief verwundete. Die See ward durch die starcke Bewegung dieses Ungeheuers weit getrübet, und über eine Viertel Meile in der Runde mit Blut gefärbet, endlich ward es 2 Meilen von dasigen Küsten
getödtet, nachdem es vorhero ein Fahrzeug mit 12 Mann durch seinen Schwantz zu Trümmern geschlagen. Es hatten 130 Mann genug zu thun,
diese Fische ans Land zu bringen. Die Zunge des alten Fisches soll 4728 Pf. jedes von 17 Untzen, der Bart aber 816 Pf. gewogen, und das über
eine halbe Elle dicke Fett 26100 Pf. Thran gegeben haben. Überhaupt schätzte man denselben 150000 Pf. schwer, den jungen aber auf 18000
Pf. Die Augen der Mutter waren grösser nicht, wie die Augen einer Kuh, das Fleisch hatte das Ansehen wie Hunde-Fleisch, vom Geschmack aber
wie Rindfleisch, und wurde meist von dem Volck eingepöckelt.“ (pers. comm. Dr. Michael Matthäus, Stadtarchiv Frankfurt, in e-lit, 24.9.2007).
83. See below.
654
ling scene leaves little to be desired. The two whales have the right size in proportion to the boats.
The animals have the proper “draught“ with just some 10% of their body mass showing above the
surface of the water84. The contour of the visible portion with the arching head, distinct neck and
curved, finless back is absolutely realistic for the species, as is the position of the paired blow of the
large whale. Beyond any doubt, this pictorial representation was made by an eyewitness of the
event. The German inscription on a banner draped in the sky reads: “Lucky whale fishery on the Biscayan coast in Spain“85.
There are two inset images showing portraits of the two captured animals. They are the oldest
realistic representations of right whales in print!86 Slight contortions of flippers and flukes can be
explained by the artist trying to draw these appendages without properly understanding their
anatomical function87. The only detail thoroughly puzzling a modern viewer is the “dorsal fin“ on
both whales. Of course, right whales don’t have dorsal fins. Given, however, the overall realism of
the depictions, it is possible that these appendages may in reality have been shreds of blubber partially peeled off and misunderstood by the anonymous artist.
THE RE-USED BASLE WOODCUT ILLUSTRATING THE CASTRO URDIALES WHALES
The news item of the Castro Urdiales whales of 27 November 1739 was also given in the Basle
almanac Hinkender Bote for 1741 (published in 1740). The story is illustrated with a woodcut by
monogrammist D.R. (David Redinger, 1698-1760; illus 17)88. It is a re-carved copy of a woodcut,
which already appeared in the same almanac for 1722, illustrating a whale or shark caught off
Naples, Italy, on 6 July 172189. Needless to say, the woodcut is not realistic at all. Only the size of the
Great Fish on the beach –emphasized by a ladder and minute people standing nearby– and the tubular spout holes on its head identify it as a ”water-blower“, i.e. a whale.
This woodcut is accompanied by the news version, which supplies the exact date of the catch, the
27 November 1739.
THE 1753 BERNE WOODCUT ILLUSTRATING THE CASTRO URDIALES WHALE CATCH
With even longer delay than their Basle competitor, the Berne Hinkender Bote for the year 1754 published (in 1753) a different woodcut accompanying the story of the whale catch off Castro Urdiales.
Signed by monogrammist R. and covering three quarters of the page, it shows the whale after the
Basle prototype of 1721, but with its tail fluke raised. Men have climbed on its back, some of them
wielding axes. In the middle ground, there is a whaling scene, albeit somewhat blurred. In the top
right corner of the woodcut, there is an insert –monogrammed FK– showing a sea monster with fore
legs and a fishy tail moving ashore and scaring people.
The location of the catch is given here as “de Urnale“90. In addition to these illustrated reports,
the Castro Urdiales whales were also mentioned in other German-language “media“ of the time91.
84. In hundreds of other etchings, the whales “bob“ on the sea surface like polystyrene toys, so that the viewer can actually see something
of them.
85. Der glückliche Walfisch- || fang an der Biscaÿsche[n] Küste || in Spanien. |||| der große alte Walfisch. |||| der Iunge Fisch.
86. There are three 17th-century drawings of right whales which betray realism to some degree, viz. the somewhat stylized watercolour
sketch in the Icelandic manuscript of Jón Guðmundsson’s natural history of whales, ca. 1640-1644 (for a colour reproduction see HUXLEY, 1987,
p. 311) and two sketches of the right whale that strayed into the Thames and was killed off Greenwich on 3 June 1658, which are found in the
diaries of John Evelyn and Peter Mundy (reproduced in FAUST, BARTHELMESS & STOPP, 2002, p. 145).
87. See footnote 13.
88. pp. 46-47. The title translates as “Representation of the huge whale fish captured together with its young on the Biscayan coast at the
end of this past winter month of 1739“. I thank Claudia Wehner Näff for first referring me to this almanac illustration. TSCHUI, 2006, illus. 13.
GREILICH & MIX, 2006, p. 311.
89. FAUST, BARTHELMESS & STOPP, 2002, pp. 266-267. The 1721 woodcut has a few morphological details “expurgated“ for the 1740
version, such as an anus and a penis. In the later version, there also are fewer hatches in the sky and two instead of three sailing vessels on the
horizon.
90. pp. 74-75. This print likewise was brought to my attention by Claudia Wehner Näff. TSCHUI, 2006.
91. Viz. the Zurich almanach Jährlicher Haushalt for 1741, pp. 34-35; the Appenzeller Schreibkalender for 1741. There is also a brief note
in the numismatic work by KUNTZMANN, 1742. All references were kindly supplied by Claudia Wehner Näff, of the Zurich research project on
Swiss popular calendars.
655
Klaus Barthelmess
THE RE-USED WOODCUT OF THE RIGHT WHALE TAKEN OFF FUENTERRABIA IN 1782
On 1 March 1782, a right whale –probably accompanied by a calf– stranded upon the sands off the
French Basque seaport of Bidart. Before fishermen from Bidart and St. Jean de Luz were able to procure whaling equipment, the whale was re-floated by the tide and escaped. At the neighbouring
Spanish Basque seaport of Fuenterrabia, however, an atalaya (lookout tower) was still manned.
Alerted by the lookout, fishermen manned four chalupas and were equipped with harpoons, lines
and other gear kept in storage for such occasions. On 2 March 1782, they managed to kill the large
whale and tow it to Magdalena beach. The whale measured 60 feet in length and 35 feet in circumference. Its baleen was one and a half Paris ells long; ca. 180 cm. French authorities estimated the
value of this whale to amount to 12,000 livres. A government official in Bordeaux, convinced that
the whale would have been caught, if the French fishermen had had whaling equipment to hand,
was planning to re-stock the marine depots at St. Jean de Luz and Bidart with gear for opportunistic
whale hunts as in the old days. This is reported by a news piece from the Basle French-language
almanac Nouvelliste François for the year 1783. It refers to information –perhaps conveyed by way of
a broadside– received from Bordeaux, some 200 km northeast of Bidart92.
The story is illustrated with a version of a woodcut, with which we are already familiar (illus 18).
It is monogrammed D.R. and is a re-carved copy of the woodcut which already appeared in the Basle
Hinkender Bote for 1722 and for 174193. It is interesting to note the differences between these
woodcut versions. The 1721 version shows the whale with an anus opening, a penis and circles
around the eye. In the 1782 version these details are carved out of the woodcut printing block. The
proportional measurements of both woodblocks are also different94.
THE ETCHINGS IN DUHAMEL DU MONCEAU’S TRAITÉ, 1782
Between 1769 and 1782, the French scholar Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau (1700-1782) published the most substantial halieutic (fisheries-related) encyclopaedia of the age of enlightenment,
the Traité général des pesches, in five volumes. Its last volume (1782) contains a 66-page chapter on
”cetaceous fishes and amphibians“95 and 15 pertaining plates with 70 figures, etched by MarieCathérine and Elisabeth Haussard and Charles Milsan. The figures pertaining to whaling illustrate
Basque, Dutch and perhaps colonial American whaling operations, but with few exceptions, the figures are not explicit as to showing either one. Plate III presents both Dutch and Basque whalemen
in their 18th-century attire. Plate VII, Figure 3 is a broadside view of a ship with an open section of
the starboard hull side. It shows the upper deck, tween decks and hold. Set between fore and main
mast, resting on the tween decks and rising slightly above the upper deck is the brick construction of
a tryworks oven (illus 19). We know that the practise of trying-out whale blubber in tryworks on
board ships was introduced by French Basque whalers in 163596 and practised still in the 18th century97. Dutch whalers from Rotterdam possibly experimented with on-board tryworks in 165898, but
this was not widely adopted by the European Arctic whalers except the Basques. Although Duhamel
does not explicitly say so, it is therefore safe to argue that this figure represents a Basque whaleship.
A few other whaling scenes in this important encyclopaedia may as well illustrate Basque whaling.
Between 1791 and 1795, the five-volume Diccionario histórico de los artes de la pesca nacional
was published in Madrid in the print shop of Joaquín Ibarra’s widow. Its author was Antonio Sañez
Reguart (dates unknown), a naval commissioner, promoter of Spanish fisheries, and a whaling entrepreneur himself.
Under the encyclopaedic entry ”harpon“ in volume III (1792), pages 330-453, Sañez provides
some information on Spanish whaling activities, especially of the Real Compañía Marítima, of which
Sañez was a founding member and shareholder99. This company was set up in 1789 and despatched
92. The French text is fully transcribed in BARTHELMESS & DU PASQUIER, 1993, pp. 363-364.
93. See above.
94. See FAUST, BARTHELMESS & STOPP, 2002, pp. 266-267 for a discussion of these differences.
95. Cetaceans and pinnipeds, i.e. whales and seals.
96. DU PASQUIER, 2000, pp. 77-81. The list of provisions for the Honfleur whaleship SAINT ETIENNE in 1684 listed bricks, sand and lime for
the building of an on-board tryworks; DU PASQUIER, 1984, p. 533.
97. Zedler’s Grosses Universallexicon, vol. 3, 1733, s.v. “Balaena“, column 174, comments on the fire risk of this practise.
98. HACQUEBORD, 1984, p. 146.
99. BARTHELMESS, 2009.
656
whaling ships until 1797. Until 1805, it also conducted shore whaling on the Isla Gorriti and fur sealing on the Isla de Lobos off the estuary of the Río de la Plata100. Pages 359-453 of the “harpon”
entry, however, are a translation from Duhamel du Monceau, properly credited.
26 etched plates (Nos. 50-75) with 63 figures pertain to the whaling entry in the Diccionario. The
artwork is unsigned, but the preparatory drawings were made by Madrid artist Juan Bautista Bru
(1740-1799)101. The first six plates present technical motifs hitherto not recorded, but plates 56 to 75
are copies of figures in Duhamel du Monceau’s Traité. As Sañez Reguart’s plates are reproduced in
several works on northern Spanish whaling102, and may thus easily be mistaken for being original pictorial documents of the Spanish whale fishery, which Duhamel certainly did not have in mind, a concordance of plates and figures in both works is supplied in the Table below.
FUTURE RESEARCH
About one third of the two dozen images of Basque whaling catalogued here were produced at a period when this enterprise was already past its prime. The last prints illustrate what were some of the last
catches of the once great Basque whale fishery. Nine of the early ones were created by French and Flemish artists and only two –the Zumarraga sketches– by a Spanish artist. The remainder are foreign depictions of Basque whaling. There are two reasons to assume that in the future more vernacular depictions
of Basque whaling will come to light. One is the extensive heraldry of whaling in the French and Spanish
Basque country (which was not discussed here). It seems unreasonable that a trade, which was important enough to be featured on the official seal of a municipality, was not also highlighted in other forms
of decorative and applied arts. The second reason is the coverage of 18th-century Basque whaling in illustrated, ephemeral media abroad. More often than not, foreign media coverage was based on domestic
coverage, usually a broadside or pamphlet produced locally. As these ephemeral prints, precursors of our
newspapers, were often treated as newspapers are after use, ie being thrown away, they are exceedingly scarce today. But they were there, and the odd copy may have survived. It is hoped that this article as
a first systematic catalogue of Basque whaling depictions may stimulate the search for more.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks are due to José María Unsain, co-director of Untzi Museoa-Museo Naval in San
Sebastián, for valuable references, literature supplied, a critical reading of the manuscript and helpful
suggestions. He and Dr Michael Barkham referred me to Romeyn de Hooghe’s view of San Sebastián on
Mortier’s map, as well as to the etching by Guéroult du Pas. Louwrens Hesselink and Miriam Vogelaar
of Antiquariaat Forum BV kindly sent a better image of Guéroult’s etching with permission to reproduce
it. Claudia Wehner Näff was exceedingly helpful in tracing the various illustrations of the Castro Urdiales
whales in Swiss almanachs. My good colleague Dr Michael Barkham –otherwise more familiar with
shipbuilding, fishing and whaling terminology– successfully grappled with arts and printing jargon and
the idiosyncrasies of my English. Finally, thanks are due to the repositories of the unique or at least rare
originals of the images reproduced here. Without their willingness to cooperate, this catalogue of
Basque whaling in contemporary pictures would not have been possible.
Concordance of illustrations in Duhamel du Monceau, 1782, and Sañez Reguart, 1792
Duhamel
-
-
-
-
-
-
8-1
1-3
2
3-3
5-2
1
5-3
Sañez
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
Duhamel
4-2
4-3
4-4
5-1
6-1
4-1
6-2
6-3
7-1
7-3
8-3
7-2
8-2
Sañez
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
NB. In both works, the plates (planches, láminas) have Roman numerals and the figures Arabic numerals. They are converted here into Arabic
ones: 8-1 means plate VIII, figure 1.
100. DIAZ DE GUERRA, 2003.
101. ARBEX, introduction to the SAÑEZ reprint, 1988, p. 13.
102. CIRIQUIAIN GAIZTARRO, 1961; GONZALEZ ECHEGARAY, 1978; AZPIAZU, 2000. Sañez Reguart’s illustrations of Spanish fur sealing
operations in Uruguay (vol. IV, 1793, plates 20-25), however, are of a substantially documentary and seemingly original character. They include
the oldest depiction of a hakapik, the efficient sealing hook of North Atlantic sealers, pre-dating the images reproduced in BARTHELMESS,
2003, p. 65. Amazingly, Sañez Reguart’s person, his role in the founding of the Real Compañía Marítima, his Diccionario and its remarkable sealing etchings have gone unnoticed in the book by DIAZ DE GUERRA, 2003.
657
1. Pierre Desceliers, manuscript world map of 1546,
whaling scene off Newfoundland and Labrador, detail.
Mid-19th century French facsimile. National Archives of
Canada.
2. Whaling scene, anonymous ink sketch in the margin of the baptismal register of the
parish of Zumarraga, 1526. Archivo Diocesano de San Sebastián.
2. Escena de caza de ballena. Dibujo anónimo a tinta en el margen del libro de
bautizados de Zumarraga del año 1526. Archivo Diocesano de San Sebastián.
1. Escena de caza de ballena cerca de Terranova y Labrador.
Detalle del mapamundi manuscrito de Pierre Desceliers,
1546. Facsímil francés de mediados del siglo XIX. Archivo
Nacional de Canadá.
3. Another whaling scene, anonymous ink sketch on a
page of the baptismal register of the parish of
Zumarraga, 1526. Archivo Diocesano de San
Sebastián.
3. Escena de caza de ballena. Dibujo anónimo a tinta en
una página del libro de bautizados de Zumarraga del
año 1526. Archivo Diocesano de San Sebastián.
4. Antoine Caron, ink drawing, ca. 1573, of the mock whaling scene staged during
the water festival of Bayonne in 1565. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.
4. Antoine Caron, dibujo a tinta, c. 1573. Escena de caza de ballena simulada,
presentada durante el festival del agua de Bayona en 1565. Biblioteca Pierpont
Morgan, Nueva York.
658
5. Brussels (?) tapestry, second half 16th century, presumably
showing a whale-flensing scene from the 1565 Bayonne water
festival (detail). Marineland Antibes, Collection Roland de la
Poype.
5. Tapiz de Bruselas (?), segunda mitad del siglo XVI. Escena de
despiece de ballena relacionada presumiblemente con las
representaciones del festival del agua de Bayona de 1565
(detalle). Marineland Antibes, Colección Roland de la Poype.
6. Flensing a whale. Anonymous woodcut from Paré’s editions published
in Paris by André Wechel in 1573, and by Gabriel Buon in 1575.
6. Despiece de una ballena. Xilografía anónima de las ediciones de Paré
publicadas en París, por André Wechel en 1573 y por Gabriel Buon en
1575.
7. Flensing a whale. Anonymous woodcut from Thevet’s edition first
published in Paris by Pierre l’Huillier in 1575. This woodcut was copied in
later editions of Paré from 1579 on. Barthelmess Whaling Collection.
7. Despiece de una ballena. Xilografía anónima de la edición de Thevet,
publicada por primera vez en París por Pierre l’Huillier en 1575. Esta
xilografía fue copiada en ediciones posteriores de Paré a partir de
1579. Barthelmess Whaling Collection.
8. Whaling scene, probably off Newfoundland and Labrador. Etching by the workshop of Filips Galle, Antwerp, after a drawing by Jos Bol, published in
1582. Barthelmess Whaling Collection.
8. Escena de caza de ballena, probablemente en aguas de Terranova y Labrador. Grabado al aguafuerte del taller de Filips Galle, Amberes, sobre dibujo de
Jos Bol, publicado en 1582. Barthelmess Whaling Collection.
9. Basque whaleboats (chalupas) in the service of English
whalers at Spitzbergen in 1613. Watercolour drawings
by Robert Fotherby, 1613-14. American Antiquarian
Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. From Barthelmess,
1987.
9. Chalupas balleneras vascas al servicio de balleneros
ingleses en Spitzbergen, en 1613. Acuarelas de Robert
Fotherby, 1613-14. American Antiquarian Society,
Worcester, Massachussets. De Barthelmess, 1987.
659
10. French (Basque?) whaling off Northern Norway and right whale skeleton
exhibited in Paris. Illustrated broadside, typeset text with etching by JeanBaptiste Humbelot, 1658. Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum.
From Faust, Barthelmess & Stopp, 2002, No. 582.
11. Foreign whaling off Iceland. Etching by Vogel from Mallet,
Frankfurt, 1685. Barthelmess Whaling Collection. An
anonymous, mirrored version already appeared in Paris in
1683.
10. Caza de ballena por franceses (¿vascos?) en el norte de Noruega y esqueleto
de ballena franca exhibido en París. Folleto ilustrado con texto y grabado al
aguafuerte por Jean-Baptiste Humbelot, 1658. Braunschweig, Museo de
Herzog Anton Ulrich. De Faust, Barthelmess & Stopp, 2002, No. 582.
11. Caza de ballena por extranjeros en Islandia. Aguafuerte de
Vogel, a partir de Mallet, Frankfurt, 1685. Barthelmess Whaling
Collection. Una versión anónima invertida ya había sido
publicada en París en 1683.
12. Whaling off San
Sebastián. Cartographic
cartridge by Romein de
Hooghe on Pierre
Mortier’s map of the
Mediterranean, 1694.
12. Caza de ballena frente a
San Sebastián. Cartucho
cartográfico de Romein
de Hooghe en el mapa
del Mediterráneo de
Pierre Mortier, 1694.
660
13. Foreign whaling off Northern Norway. Etching by Joseph de Montalegre after
a drawing by Johannes Degler, 1701. Barthelmess Whaling Collection.
13. Caza de ballena por extranjeros en el norte de Noruega. Aguafuerte de
Joseph de Montalegre a partir de un dibujo de Johannes Degler, 1701.
Barthelmess Whaling Collection.
14. Foreign whaling off Northern Norway. Watercolour drawing by
Hans Hansen Lilienskiold, in his manuscript Speculum boreale,
1693-1703. Finnmarksbiblioteket, Vadsø, Norway.
14. Caza de ballena por extranjeros en el norte de Noruega.
Acuarela de Hans Hansen Lilienskiold, en su manuscrito
Speculum boreale, 1693-1703. Finnmarksbiblioteket, Vadsø,
Noruega.
15. Basque whaling chalupa. Etching by
Pierre-Jacob Guéroult du Pas, Paris,
1710. Collection Antiquariaat
Forum, Utrecht.
15. Chalupa ballenera vasca.
Aguafuerte de Pierre-Jacob Guéroult
du Pas, París, 1710. Collection
Antiquariaat Forum, Utrecht.
661
16. Capture of a right whale cow and calf off Castro Urdiales (Cantabria) on 27 November 1739. Anonymous etching (detail) from the Frankfurt
Messrelation for spring, 1740. Barthelmess Whaling Collection.
16. Captura de una ballena franca hembra y un ballenato frente a Castro Urdiales (Cantabria) el 27 de noviembre de 1739. Aguafuerte anónimo (detalle) de
la publicación Frankfurt Messrelation para la primavera de 1740. Barthelmess Whaling Collection.
17. Capture of a right whale cow and calf off Castro Urdiales on 27
November 1739. Woodcut by David Redinger from the Basle
almanac Hinkender Bote for 1741. Basle University, Institute for Folk
Research and European Ethnology, signature S Kal 79, 1941.
18. Capture of a right whale off Fuenterrabia on 2 March 1782. Re-used
woodcut by David Redinger from Basle almanac Nouvelliste François for
the year 1783. Providence, John Carter Brown Library. After Barthelmess
& Du Pasquier, 1993.
17. Captura de una ballena franca hembra y un ballenato frente a Castro
Urdiales (Cantabria) el 27 de noviembre 1739. Xilografía de David
Redinger del almanaque de Basilea Hinkender Bote para 1741.
Universidad de Basilea, Instituto de Investigación del Folclore y
Etnología Europea, signatura S Kal 79, 1941.
18. Captura de una ballena franca a la altura de Fuenterrabía el 2 de marzo
1782. Xilografía de David Redinger reutilizada para el almanaque de
Basilea Nouvelliste François del año 1783. Providence, John Carter
Brown Library. De Barthelmess y Du Pasquier, 1993.
19. Basque whaleship with on-board
tryworks oven. Etching by Charles
Milsan from Duhamel du Monceau,
1782, plate VII, fig. 3.
19. Ballenero vasco con horno para fundir
grasa de ballena. Aguafuerte de
Charles Milsan de la obra de Duhamel
du Monceau, 1782, lámina VII, Fig. 3.
662
LITERATURE
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del País Vasco, 2, 1998, pp. 599-618. Online under: http://um.gipuzkoakultura.net/pdf/aldabaldetrecu.pdf
ANON.: Catalogue of a loan exhibition of paintings & prints from the Macpherson collection, Guildhall Art
Gallery, London, 1928.
ANSEL, Willits D.: The whaleboat. A study of design, construction and use from 1850 to 1970, Mystic, 1978.
AVERY, Charles: A school of dolphins, Thames & Hudson, London, 2009.
AZPIAZU, José Antonio: Balleneros vascos en el Cantábrico, Ttarttalo, Donostia-San Sebastián, 2000.
BARKHAM, Michael M.: Shipowning, shipbuilding and trans-Atlantic fishing in Spanish-Basque ports, 15601630: a case study of Motrico and Zumaya. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Cambridge, 1990.
BARKHAM, Michael M.: “La economía marítima donostiarra en “el largo siglo XVI””, in UNSAIN, José María
(ed.): San Sebastián, ciudad marítima, Untzi Museoa-Museo Naval, San Sebastián, 2008, pp. 175-193.
BARKHAM, Michael M.: “The offshore and distant-water fisheries of the Spanish Basques, c. 1500-1650”, in
David J. Starkey, Jón Th. Thór & Ingo Heidbrink (eds.): A history of the North Atlantic fisheries. Vol. 1: From
early times to the mid-nineteenth century, Bremen, 2009, pp. 229-249.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus: Das Bild des Wals in fünf Jahrhunderten. Führer durch die Ausstellung aus Anlass des
Beitritts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zur Internationalen Walfangkommission (Ausstellungskatalog, Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek Köln, 27. September - 6. November 1982), dme-Verlag, Köln, 1982.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus: “Walfangtechnik vor 375 Jahren. Die Zeichnungen in Robert Fotherbys ‘Journal’ von
1613 und ihr Einfluss auf die Druckgraphik“, in Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv, 10, 1987, pp. 289-324.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus: “Nue Erkenntnisse zur Walstrandungsgraphik des 16. Jahrhunderts. Erster Nachtrag zu
Monstrum horrendum. [New insights into 16th-century prints of stranded whales; first supplement to Monstrum horrendum]”, in Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv, 21, 1998, pp. 157-181.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus: Das erste gedruckte deutsche Walfangjournal. Christian Bullens ”Tag-Register“ einer
Hamburger Fangfahrt nach Spitzbergen und Nordnorwegen im Jahre 1667, De Bataafsche Leeuw, Amsterdam; Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, Bremerhaven, 2003.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus: “History of eating whales in Europe and America”, in HAPPYNOOK, Kathy (ed.): Whaling
for food, WCW, Qualicum Beach, 2005, pp. 20-31.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus: The whale’s beard. Baleen in history. A special exhibition on the occasion of the Seventh
Cologne Whaling Meeting, Cologne, 10-12 November 2006. Semi-published handout.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus: The arts of modern whaling (= Commander Chr. Christensen’s Whaling Museum, Publication 32), Sandefjord Art Association & Christensen’s Whaling Museum, Sandefjord, 2007.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus: Die Walknochen der Nordseeinsel Borkum. Kulturgeschichte bedeutsamer Denkmäler
aus der Blütezeit des europäischen Arktiswalfangs mit Überlegungen zu ihrer Konservierung [The whale
bones of North Sea island Borkum. The cultural history of important monuments from the peak period of
European Arctic whaling, including considerations about their conservation] (= Speckpresse £SSchriften zur
Kulturgeschichte von Mensch und Meeressäuger, No. 1). Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2008.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus: ”Walfangaktien und Walmotive auf Aktien”, in Fluke (in press).
BARTHELMESS, Klaus; CLAUDE, Caesar (in preparation): “Cutting up a whale. Artists processing a north Atlantic
whaling icon, 1539-1789“.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus; MÜNZING, Joachim: Monstrum horrendum. Wale und Walstrandungen in der Druckgraphik des 16. Jahrhunderts und ihr motivkundlicher Einfluss (= Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, 29), Hamburg, 1991.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus; TOUGAARD, Svend: “Rekonstruktion af tranudvinding“, in Sjæk’len 1998. Arbog for
Fiskeri- og Søfartsmuset, Saltvandsakvariet i Esbjerg, Esbjerg, 1999, pp. 102-115.
BARTHELMESS, Klaus & DU PASQUIER, Thierry: “Der Wal von Fuenterrabia (2. März 1782). Eine Episode aus der
Schlussphase des Baskenwalfangs“, in Deutsches Schiffahrtsarchiv, 16, 1993, pp. 363-372.
BERRAONDO, Ramón: “Sellos medioevales de tipo naval“, in Revista Internacional de Estudios Vascos, 23, 1932,
pp. 130-138.
BEYERMAN, Hugo Christiaan: Walvisvaart, wijnhandel & schilderkunst. De Rotterdamse reders Beyerman,
Bataafsche Leeuw, Amsterdam, 1995.
BEYERMAN, Hugo Christiaan: “Een scheepsbouwkundige tekening van een walvissloep door Adam Silo (1674 ca. 1757)”, in Acht glazen, 14 (2), Dezember 1999.
663
Klaus Barthelmess
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zeegeschiedenis, 5 (2), 1986, pp. 87-145.
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BREDEKAMP, Horst, BRÜNING, Jochen; WEBER, Cornelia (eds.): Theater der Natur und Kunst - Theatrum naturae et artis. Wunderkammern des Wissens. Exhibition catalogue, Humboldt-Universität, 2 vols., Berlin, 2000.
BREWINGTON, Marion V. & Dorothy: Kendall Whaling Museum Paintings, Sharon, Mass., 1965.
BREWINGTON, Marion V. & Dorothy: Kendall Whaling Museum Prints, Sharon, Mass., 1969.
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CHECA, Fernand: El coleccionismo en España. De la cámara de maravillas a la galería de pinturas, Madrid, 1985.
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2
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