'Description of a Floating Object (Inscription by Turner)', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Description of a Floating Object (Inscription by Turner)

From Tabley No.2 Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CIV

Date 1808

MediumGraphite on paper

Dimensionssupport: 162 x 98 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D06983

Turner Bequest CIV 88

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the Tabley No.2 Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 89 Recto:

Description of a Floating Object (Inscription by Turner) 1808

D06983
Turner Bequest CIV 88

Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white laid paper, 162 x 98 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘88’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CIV 88’ top right, running vertically

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

Turner’s inscription reads:

See Introduction for Turner’s travels in North Wales in 1808, and his fondness for fishing which doubtless accounted for the sight of this object floating past him in the River Dee. From his description, jotted down as he watched, it might have been a dead fish, or as Hamilton suggests the float at the end of Turner’s fishing line; Bailey, in an aside, remarks of the ‘Body’ that ‘whether human or not [Turner] doesn’t say’.

Turner wrote a longer passage on reflections in water and related matters, prompted by or continuing the present one, in the Tabley No.3 sketchbook (Tate D07114, D40630; Turner Bequest CV). Observations like these were grist to Turner’s mill as he collected ideas for his lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy; Lecture 5, first given in 1811, was devoted to ‘Reflexes’ (reflections) and included a passage on reflections in water or on objects in it.

David Blayney Brown
May 2010

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.