Connected with the series of paintings representing the activities of whalers which Turner showed at the R.A. in 1845 (50, 77) and 1846 (237, 494) of which the last was 'Whalers (boiling blubber) entangled in flaw ice, endeavouring to extricate themselves' (No.524). This sheet is one of the twenty used leaves of the 'Whalers' sketchbook, which contains a series of studies in the unusual medium of combined coloured chalks and watercolour, some on a grey prepared ground. Another whaling study, very loosely drawn with a little watercolour and inscribed 'He breaks away' is in the Fitzwilliam Museum (PD.116.1950). It probably came from the 'Ambleteuse and Wimereux' sketchbook, T.B.CCCLVII, which contains an impressive watercolour sketch of a floundering whale (repr. Butlin, 1962, pl.31). Whether Turner actually saw the animal during his channel crossing in 1845 is not certain; he had obviously been interested in whales and whaling before that journey.