This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/12/2023
[WHALING]. PAGE, William (American, 1811-1885). -- HULSART, Cornelius B. Capturing a Sperm Whale. To Messrs. N. & W. W. Billings Merchants of New London this Print is respectfully inscribed by Cornelius B. Hulsart who lost an arm on board their Ship Superior while engaged in the Whale Fishery in the Pacific Ocean. New York: Cornelius B. Hulsart for the Office of the Seaman’s Friend Society, 1835.
Hand-colored aquatint by John Hill (1770-1850), after a painting by Page from a sketch by Hulsart; sheet 521 x 692 mm. (Overall browned, few scorch marks at lower margin, some closed tears to upper image, mounted on archival paper).
THIS IS BELIEVED TO BE THE FIRST AMERICAN-MADE WHALING PRINT and in any condition: “A very rare print.” (1919 Peabody Museum Special Exhibition of Whaling Pictures catalog, 9). “These beautiful and highly decorative prints, today of extreme rarity, further emphasize Hill’s importance in the field of American engraving, for they are the only sporting prints ever engraved in aquatint and published in early 19th-century America” (New York Historical Society, vol. 43, no. 1, p. 108).