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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Work for Earls Egremont and Lonsdale ... > Kirkstall Lock Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Sluice Outfall, with Barges Unloading Coals 1809

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Sluice Outfall, with Barges Unloading Coals’ 1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Sluice Outfall, with Barges Unloading Coals 1809
D12241
Turner Bequest CLV 2
Pencil on white wove paper, 186 x 231 mm (top and bottom left corners missing)
Inscribed by Turner in pencil, ‘Barges unloading coals.’
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘2’, bottom right
Stamped in black in ‘CLV 2’, bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg described the subject as ‘Lock gates’ but Turner seems to show a large sluice outfall. The figures to the left give the structure scale. In the background are what appear to be crags or a quarry face. Identifiable sketches originally succeeding this in the sketchbook are at Cassiobury near Watford, and given the barges mentioned in the inscription this might be a subject on the Grand Union Canal in the Colne Valley near Rickmansworth.
The Grand Union was completed in 1803 and linked London with Birmingham and the north of England. The coal could have come from the maritime coalfields of the North-West or North-East, or possibly from the Midlands. In this same sketchbook, Turner sketched coal setting out from the coal port of Whitehaven.
Verso:
Blank, except for an inscription (?by one of the Executors of the Turner Bequest) in pencil ‘Sched 154.17’. 154 appears to be a mistake for 164. The majority of leaves are similarly inscribed with the schedule number (usually given correctly as 164) plus the page number in the sequence. This numbered sequence runs counter to that given by Finberg and appears to be original (see Introduction, and notes to D12244; Turner Bequest CLV 4a).

David Hill
June 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘A Sluice Outfall, with Barges Unloading Coals 1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-a-sluice-outfall-with-barges-unloading-coals-r1134653, accessed 26 April 2024.