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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Thames sketchbooks c.1804-14 > Thames, from Reading to Walton ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Figures in a Punt, ?Cutting Rushes, Setting Eel-Pots or Cutting Osiers 1805

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Figures in a Punt, ?Cutting Rushes, Setting Eel-Pots or Cutting Osiers’ 1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Figures in a Punt, ?Cutting Rushes, Setting Eel-Pots or Cutting Osiers 1805
D05940
Turner Bequest XCV 36
Pencil on white wove paper, 258 x 358 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘36’ bottom right
Stemped in black ‘XCV 36’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This a right-hand page from the sketchbook, its right edge cut down. In Hill’s opinion there is no reason to confirm Finberg’s view that the drawing shows rush-cutting; he suggests instead setting eel-pots or cutting osiers. He describes the drawing as ‘One of the most elaborate of [Turner’s] broken-down willow compositions’ with ‘a poverty-stricken air about it’, adding that the right-hand figures might be a mother and child although the drawing is too vague to be read for certain. The location, on or near the River Thames, is unknown.
Verso:
Blank. Laid down

David Blayney Brown
February 2009

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Figures in a Punt, ?Cutting Rushes, Setting Eel-Pots or Cutting Osiers 1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-figures-in-a-punt-cutting-rushes-setting-eel-pots-or-cutting-r1129972, accessed 20 September 2024.