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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Figures in an Interior, Perhaps Mending a Boat 1811

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Figures in an Interior, Perhaps Mending a Boat’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 137 Verso:
Figures in an Interior, Perhaps Mending a Boat 1811
D08622
Turner Bequest CXXIII 134a
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 75 x 117 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The heavy shading of the wall and beams gives this drawing a contre-jour effect suggesting that the setting is indoors. There seem to be about a dozen figures, only the nearest of which are drawn with any clarity, gathered round what may be a small boat (with its stern at the left) in a boat-shed Turner observed on the coast of the West Country.
There is another study of figures in a dark interior on folio 142 verso (D08631; CXXIII 139a), although the two scenes appear otherwise unrelated.

Matthew Imms
June 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Figures in an Interior, Perhaps Mending a Boat 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2011, 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-an-interior-perhaps-mending-a-boat-r1137099, accessed 25 April 2024.