various depictions of stranded whales 2

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i. Italian broadside (engraving), on the stranding of a whale near Ancona, Italy (25 February 1602).

This broadside was possibly sold by the owners of a travelling exhibit featuring the skeleton of this whale. Barthelmess Whaling Collection, No. 846.

j. Woodcut illustration, of a pilot whale near Katwijk, Holland (20 September 1608). Note the rotted guts spilling out. In the pamphlet, the condition of the carcass is compared to a “rotting” peace treaty between the Netherlands and Spain. Barthelmess Whaling Collection, No. 241. (Barthelmess has catalogued 145 European broadsides and pamphlets about whales stranded between 1531 and 1792.)

A large whale, thrown up out of the blue sea (gods, let it not be a bad omen!), washed up on the beach near Katwijk. What a terror of the deep Ocean is a whale, when it is driven by the wind and its own power on to the shore of the land and lies captive on the dry sand. We commit this creature to paper and we make it famous, so that the people can talk it about it. (trans. form Latin, Goldman)

k. Esias van de Velde, Stranded Whale, 1617. Collection of the Kendall Whaling Museum, Sharon, Mass.

l. Jan Jonston, Historiae Naturalis de piscibus et cetis libri V, cum aeneis figuris. Illustrated by Caspar and Matthias Merian. Copperplate. 1657; 1660.