Three tall sailing ships, each with three masts and full sails, float in calm, arctic waters, surrounded by fragments of icebergs and ice floes amid a smattering of arctic animals in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon line comes about a quarter of the way up the composition so the sails and rigging of the ships are shown against the sky. The clouds have ivory tops and lavender-purple undersides, and they curve in a C-shaped bank to cover most of the left half of the painting and to span the horizon. The three ships closest to us are spaced evenly across the composition, with the…
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The Northern Whale Fishery: The "Swan" and "Isabella"

painter John Ward of Hull (British, 1798 - 1849)

c. 1840

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 48.9 x 71.8 cm (19 1/4 x 28 1/4 in.)
Culture
British
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CAB
Credit line
The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed

View at the National Gallery of Art