Whaling Van der Meulen, whose work was engraved by Elisha Kirkall in mezzotint, above, had at least four more paintings engraved in the same manner by the same mezzotinter. Of curious interest here is that his depiction of the slaughter of the sea-lion (actually, the animal must be a walrus) derives directly from the bottom right-hand corner of the line print engraved after R.Sheppard, at the top of this page. Neither Sheppard nor van der Meulen gives a strong impression of having personally witnessed these massacres; although, on second thoughts, perhaps I'm wrong about Sheppard. The pointy heights in the background indicate Spitzbergen, aka Svalbard. The GREENLAND or WHALE FISHERY. Carrington Bowles (1724-1792), according to Clayton, took over his uncle's shop in St Paul's Churchyard after the death of Thomas Bowles (the third?) in 1762. As these dates indicate, the prints above must have been re-issues, post 1762, perhaps as late as about 1830, judging from the paper they are printed on. Since Kirkall is confidently believed to have died in 1742, the inscriptions Tho.Baston pinxt and E.Kirkall fecit raise queries. Baston is not known to have painted any pictures, and one may wonder whether Kirkall ever engraved line prints in this manner. The "Greenland" indicated in the title is not Greenland as we know it, but refers to Spitzbergen, a place where I have spent several chilly weeks aboard a small yacht. See here. Opposite page 88 in Chatterton's Old Ship Prints, 1928, is a very similar though not identical print, shown above, here inscribed R.Sheppard Sculpt., with the legend The Greenland Whale Fishery: Thus dies Leviathan, thus ends his Reign,/O'er all th'inferiour Natives of the Main. These innocuous lines excite Chatterton's ire; it is difficult to tell why. Robert Sheppard is mentioned by Clayton as one of the engravers who subscribed to the St Martin's Lane Academy in 1720. It looks as if Baston was the original author of this design, which was engraved twice, first by Sheppard, and then (perhaps?) by Kirkall. Whaling prints are a sub-genre of their own. The reproduction above is described by Chatterton in Old Sea Paintings, p.100, as a "monochrome" attributed to J.Boon. Chatterton dates the work to "about 1724", and treats it with the greatest scorn. J.Boon is an enigmatic name, which I haven't come across in any other context, and am led to speculate that J.Boon is actually T Baston. Could the fact that there are no known oil paintings by Baston mean that he had some disability, such as colour blindness? "J.Boon's monochrome" is clearly compositionally related to the prints after both Sheppard and Baston, but difficult to say which came first: could be any of the three. So far as I know, Monamy, unlike Brooking, produced no whaling pictures. back to prints, prints, prints © Charles Harrison Wallace 2007
and other arctic hunting 
La PECHERIE de GREENLAND, ou de la BALEINE
Tho. Baston pinxt E.Kirkall fecit
Printed for Carrington Bowles, next the Chapter House in St Paul's Churchyard, London. 10 x 15
Charles Brooking, who had been "much at sea".
baston 1
go to baston 2
more on baston: october 2005
kirkall's prints
hazy weather: odyssey of an image
mezzotints line prints
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