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 > River and Margate Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sailing Barges, Guardship and a Rowing Boat: ?Related to 'Purfleet and the Essex Shore as Seen from Long Reach' c.1805-8

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sailing Barges, Guardship and a Rowing Boat: ?Related to 'Purfleet and the Essex Shore as Seen from Long Reach'’ c.1805-8
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 29 Recto:
Sailing Barges, Guardship and a Rowing Boat: ?Related to ‘Purfleet and the Essex Shore as Seen from Long Reach’ circa 1805–8
D06399
Turner Bequest XCIX 25
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 115 x 190 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘25’ top right
Stamped in black ‘XCIX 25’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg’s note adds ‘Possibly related to Mr. J.G. Gould’s “The Nore”’, thus referring to Purfleet and the Essex Shore as Seen from Long Reach (private collection),1 bought by the Earl of Essex from Turner’s Gallery in 1808. The connection seems proven in respect of the positions of the naval guardship in the left distance, the rowing boat in the left foreground and the barge on the right, but in the picture Turner omitted the two other sailing barges in the centre of this sketch.

David Blayney Brown
March 2009

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.57 no.74 (pl.84).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Sailing Barges, Guardship and a Rowing Boat: ?Related to ‘Purfleet and the Essex Shore as Seen from Long Reach’ c.1805–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-sailing-barges-guardship-and-a-rowing-boat-related-to-r1130594, accessed 25 April 2024.