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

Drawn with the sketchbook inverted are two sketches that Gerald Finley tentatively identifies as the ‘flotilla of barges preparing to depart for Leith harbour’.1 These are the boats that brought the King and his company from the royal squadron to Leith Harbour, including the royal barge (see folio 5 verso; D17517) which, steered by Commodore Sir Charles Paget and rowed by sixteen oarsmen, conveyed the King with the Marquis of Conyngham and Lord Graves. The other barges belonged to Admiral Beresford and the Captains of the boats in the squadron.2

There is no sign of Leith Harbour in this sketch; rather the barges appear to float close to the larger boats of the royal squadron. Little is actually shown of the vessels themselves, although their crews and passengers are indicated by horizontal clusters of circles and curves. The upper sketch may show the royal barge, identifiable from the flag flying from its stern (see folio 73 verso; D17636). The lower sketch concentrates on one of the ships of the fleet where a ladder to reach the barges can be made out.

The bustle and dynamism of the sketch is recreated in Turner’s unfinished oil of the subject, The King’s Departure from the ‘Royal Barge’ in the Royal Barge, circa 1823 (Tate N02880),3 although it shows a moment shortly after the one captured in the sketch, and the composition shows the ships and barges from a different viewpoint.