Whales, out of their natural context

In light of the recent beached whale set to explode, memories of the 1970 planned explosion of a beached whale that, somewhat comically but also tragically, didn't work out so well, and the extra-gross whale that exploded when it was being cut open, I started thinking about other beached whales I had come across in prints and texts.

Jan Saenredam, Stranded Whale, 1602

One website provides the translation of the text:

“A large whale, thrown up out of the blue sea (gods, let it not be a bad omen!), washed up on the beach near Katwijk.  What a terror of the deep Ocean is a whale, when it is driven by the wind and its own power on to the shore of the land and lies captive on the dry sand.  We commit this creature to paper and we make it famous, so that the people can talk it about it.”

They were always considered omens, in this case one that coincided with a Spanish attack on the Netherlands.

I also came across this print, from a wildly different context:

Ida Bagus Nyoman Rai-Sanur, Indonesia, 1970s

And here's a whole slew of British ones.

Recently Slate had a story on how the great Blue Whale was suspended from the ceiling of the Natural History Museum in New York.

A second famous whale in the museum is shown fighting with a giant squid for its life. If you haven't seen either in person, the movie The Squid and the Whale does a good job of conveying the nostalgic feeling many have for them.