H.M.S. Agamemnon Laying the Atlantic Telegraph Cable in 1858: a Whale

A tall wooden warship with rows of gunports and crew lining its rail fills the right side of the sheet, its hull sweeping down toward rough green water. Two whales surface and dive beside the ship, one tail raised at left, under a pale, heavy sky. The watercolor is worked with fine graphite lines in the rigging and soft bodycolor highlights on the sea.

Look closer: A second whale's back and fin break the surface near the hull, almost hidden against the dark water.

Artist

Robert Charles Dudley

Date

1865–66

Medium

Watercolor over graphite with touches of gouache (bodycolor)

Source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Size

3545 × 2515 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Cyrus W. Field, 1892