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Description

Good example of the H.S. Hutchinson & Co. edition of Benjamin Russell's fine view of Whaling in the Behring Sea.

Benjamin Russell (October 16, 1804 - March 3, 1885) was an American artist best known for his accurate watercolors of whaling ships working in New England. Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, to a wealthy family, Russell started drawing and painting in his late 30s, after a few years spent working as a cooper aboard a whaling ship.

Russell left his family behind and signed aboard the ship Kutusoff of New Bedford bound to the Indian and Pacific Oceans on a whaling voyage from 1841 to 1845. During forty-two months aboard the Kutusoff, Russell learned the details of whaleships and whaling while he trained himself to sketch and paint these subjects in detail.

Russell's images "were appreciated more for their accurate representation than their artistic value." However, most of his work is perfectly to scale, resembling control drawings. Russell's watercolors are some of the better views of the mid-19th-century American whaling industry, until photography became available in the 1850s.

Russell's complete body of work consists of over one hundred paintings and a dozen lithographs resulting from specific commissions or produced simply as speculative objects for general sale.

Condition Description
Minor marginal chipping and dampstaining.