Whalers, ca. 1845, Oil on canvas, 36 1/8 x 48 1/4 in. (91. 8 x 122. 6 cm), Paintings, Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, London 1775?1851 London), Turner was seventy years old when Whalers debuted to mixed reviews at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1845. Its subject proved elusive, as the English novelist William Thackeray observed: 'That is not a smear of purple you see yonder, but a beautiful whale, whose tail has just slapped a half-dozen whale-boats into perdition; and as for what you fancied to be a few zig-zag lines spattered on the canvas at hap-hazard, look! they turn out to be a ship with all her sails