J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of the Sterns of Large Sailing Yachts, Perhaps in a Rotterdam Boatyard ?near the Ooster Oude Hoofdpoort; a Fishing Boat 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of the Sterns of Large Sailing Yachts, Perhaps in a Rotterdam Boatyard ?near the Ooster Oude Hoofdpoort; a Fishing Boat’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 80 Verso:
Studies of the Sterns of Large Sailing Yachts, Perhaps in a Rotterdam Boatyard ?near the Ooster Oude Hoofdpoort; a Fishing Boat 1825
D18998
Turner Bequest CCXIV 80a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘GW’, ‘Gold Head’ and ‘WGR’ towards top left, ‘Pleasure Yatch’ (sic) and ‘GW’ towards top centre, all around sterns, and ‘fishg’ towards bottom right, beside boat with lift net
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, there are two bands of studies. Along the top is a row of carefully observed sterns, ornately decorated with scrolls, figures and gilding. At least one belongs to a ‘Pleasure Yatch’ (sic), as Turner wrote, along with abbreviated colour notes; the term was well-established and current at this date.1 The hulls appear to be clear of the water, likely in a dry dock; compare folio 76 recto (D18989).
The sketch towards the bottom left may show sheds or frameworks with drying sails; these elements are possibly continuous with those at the bottom right, with a jumble of dockyard gear and a ‘fish[in]g’ boat, with a crane-like boom supporting the frame of a lever or lift net; compare those shown in views of Cologne (folio 142 verso; D19121), Liège (folios 166 recto and verso; D18168–D19169), and Ghent (folio 205 recto; D19246).
In the background is the slight outline of a hipped roof with a chimney or cupola; this is possibly Rotterdam’s riverfront Ooster Oude Hoofdpoort, seen on adjacent pages, for example folio 79 verso (D18996). See under folio 35 recto (D18908) for views in and around the city in this book and elsewhere, and its Introduction for discussion of its many shipping studies.
The vertical stroke at the bottom centre is the very top of the Montelbaanstoren in Amsterdam, continued across the gutter from folio 81 recto opposite (D18999).

Matthew Imms and Quirine van der Meer Mohr
September 2020

1
See for example John Harman Bedford, Wanderings of Childe Harolde. A Romance of Real Life, London 1825, vol.I, p.186.

How to cite

Matthew Imms and Quirine van der Meer Mohr, ‘Studies of the Sterns of Large Sailing Yachts, Perhaps in a Rotterdam Boatyard ?near the Ooster Oude Hoofdpoort; a Fishing Boat 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-studies-of-the-sterns-of-large-sailing-yachts-perhaps-in-a-r1202350, accessed 06 May 2025.