A signed original watercolor of the starboard side view of the whaleship Governor Troup. Her hull is black with a white stripe with gun ports. Her sails are full and nearly set. Russell includes an overload of detail of all the complicated rigging that create a web of lines between the three masts. An indistinguishable row of standardized men stand on the deck.
"This attractive whaler was painted about the year 1862 while under the command of E. R. Ashley, a member of the important Ashley family of New Bedford. She was owned or managed for a number of years by the well-known ship merchant E. C. Jones of that city.
In 1859 a larger part of the crew mutinied and deserted.
It is of interest to learn that in 1872 she was sold to Boston interest, probably serving from then on as a merchantman. It is perhaps surprising that, according to Alexander Starbuck, a very great authority on whale ships, fifty-one whalers were from Boston, many being schooners bent of whaling. Others from Massachusetts were Mattapoisett 42; Provincetown 111; Salem 26; Plymouth, Falmouth and Orleans 6 each; Gloucester 5; Lynn 5; Newburyport 4; Dorchester 4; Beverly 2 and Marblehead, Wareham and Duxbury each 1.
During 1707 a Boston paper stated that a whale forty feet long entered the harbor and was killed near Noddle��s Island, now known as East Boston, and another interesting record is contained in a letter written in 1724 by the Hon. Paul Dudley, who mentions that he has just received a note from a Mr. Atkins of Boston, who was one of the first to go hunting for sperm whales. There were many whale ships mentioned in the Boston records, although usually fitting out and sailing from other neighboring ports."
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), 63.
