An original watercolor of a starboard side view of the whaling bark, 'President II.' "There were several 'Presidents,' one registered at Nantucket and one at Westport, Massachusetts, but the subject of this picture probably hailed from New Bedford. She made a number of voyages in the earlier days and was sold to this last port in 1846. She was owned at times by Samuel Rodman, Jr. and the Russell firm, and went on a whaling voyage under command of one of the well-known Howlands. A whale at the left is seen 'breaching' and another one 'sounding.' Some exciting races have been recorded, almost as exciting as a Harvard-Yale boat race, when two whaleboat crews contended for a whale as the prize, valued at three to four thousand dollars.
The captions done by Benjamin Russell are drawn in identical and rather unusual type, making it easier to identify his pictures."
See Allan Forbes, Whale Ships and Whaling Scenes as Portrayed by Benjamin Russell. Presenting Reproductions in Color of the Paintings of the Foremost Artist in That Field (Boston: Printed for the Second Bank-State Street Trust Co, 1955), 57.
