hand-colored lithograph depicting in the foreground men on a whale boat harpooning a whale. In the distance to the right, there is a whaling vessel is cutting strips of blubber off of a whale already attached to the hull of the ship. Black smoke comes out from the vessel's tryworks and crewmen on a whale boat to the right of the vessel can be seen hauling another dead whale back to the main vessel.
A word of the print's printed description is missing: "Attacking a [missing word] whale and 'cutting in.'" The missing word would have indicated the type of whale ("right").