Turner exhibited four pictures of "Whalers', two in I845 and two in 1846; one of those exhibited in 1845 is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, while the others are in the Tate Gallery. All save this example were given references to 'Beale's Voyages', Thomas Beale's The Natural History of the Sperm Whale, published in 1839. Though generally similar in character and probably worked up on the basis of unfinished seapieces such as Nos.502-3, they are contrasted in colour and hence mood, and were probably seen as deliberate variations on a theme. There are composition sketches, related to the oils in general terms, in the "Whalers' sketchbook (T.B.CCCLIII-6 to 14; see No. 633). See also No.BI17.

Turner's whaling pictures were fairly well received though the Art Union for June 1846 thought them the result of an 'eccentric movement in search of material... We are indebted, however, to "Beale's Voyage" ... for having saved us from the infliction of passages from the "Fallacies of Hope”.’ Of 'Whalers (Boiling Blubber)' it wrote, 'There is a charming association of colour here the emerald green tells with exceeding freshness; but it would be impossible to define anything in the composition save the rigging of the ship.' To the Athenaeum, 9 May, it presented 'something more tangible' than usual; 'one can make forms out of those masses of beautiful, though almost chaotic colours. The sea-green hue of the ice, the flicker of the sunbeam on the waves, the boiling of the blubber, and the tall forms of the icebound vessels, make up an interesting picture, dressed in Turner's magic glow'.