A Whale-Oil Factory of the Nordic or Greenland Company on Amsterdam Island at the north end of Spitzbergen (Svalbard)

In 1639, when this canvas was signed, Dutch whaling in the Arctic was still a cartel. The Northern Company, set up in 1614, held the Dutch monopoly on hunting whales around Spitsbergen, and in summer its crews boiled blubber into oil at shore stations such as Smeerenburg, a name that means Blubbertown. De Man shows the whole process in one sweep. At the left a whale carcass lies on the beach while men cut it up, ships lie offshore beyond it, and across the shore the ovens send up thick smoke from their try-pots. The workers' barracks stand behind. Even the setting is a blend. The museum points out that the snowy peak at the left resembles the Beerenberg on Jan Mayen, as drawn on a map by Blaeu. The cartel was dissolved three years later, in 1642.