Tom I. No.36. Note from Stuart M. Frank, Kendall Institute, New Bedford, Mass (Nov. 2013) 'There was a long-lived spate of sperm whale strandings on the Dutch North Sea coast, much celebrated in artworks, from the last quarter of the 16th century through the third quarter of the 17th, with a few isolated instances afterwards. The most significant of these from the standpoint of iconography (as it greatly influenced the pictures of later strandings and natural history illustrations well into the 19th century) was in 1598, as commemorated by Jacob Matham after Hendrik Goltzius [i.e. the current image]. Joannes Saenredam's grandiose portrayal of a stranding in 1602, and a 1618 re-engraving that commemorates the death of the artist, are thoroughly saturated with theological, metaphysical, and political significances. For a sample of the many etchings and engravings whale strandings in Holland and Flanders circa 1577-1665, see Elizabeth Ingalls, 'Whaling Prints' (1987), figs. 355-371. However, the most famous stranding and by far the most elaborately depicted was the one 'between Scheveningen and Katwijk' in 1617, as portrayed in contemporaneous paintings by Adam Willaerts and Esaias van de Velde (qq.v., www.whalingmuseum.org, click on 'search collections'), the former quite proficiently illustrating coastwise watercraft, the latter featuring an equestrian portrait of Prince Maurits, the whale in both of them based on the Goltzius-Saenredam prototype.' See also notebook field for BHC0790 re: a painting by Anthonissen at the Fitzwilliam Museum. [PvdM 11/13]