Gezicht op het roeien van de walvissen naar de schepen 1742 - 1801

This print, made by Georg Balthasar Probst around the late 18th century, gives us a bird's-eye view of whale processing. The printmaking technique allowed for the relatively quick and cheap production of multiple copies, which could then be hand-colored, as we see here. Notice the division of labor depicted: the small boats filled with workers approaching the massive whale carcass near the ship. The image isn't just about the glory of the hunt. It's about the labor of extracting resources and transforming them into commodities. The blubber will be rendered into oil, the bones into corsets and other goods, and the baleen into brushes and other goods. We can almost feel the cold, the grease, and the risk involved. Probst’s print reveals the entanglement of humans and animals, commerce and ecology, in this pivotal moment of industrial development.