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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for 'The Wreck of a Transport Ship' c.1805-10

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
Study for ‘The Wreck of a Transport Ship’ circa 1805–10
D05398
Turner Bequest LXXXVII 23
Pen and ink on cream laid paper, 118 x 185 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘23’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXXVII 23’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg associated this sketch with Turner’s picture The Shipwreck (Tate, N00476).1 However, it is actually a sketch for The Wreck of a Transport Ship (Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon),2 a later work of about 1810. Another sketch for it is on folio 4 verso of the sketchbook (D05383; Turner Bequest LXXXVII 8). See Introduction to the sketchbook for the picture and its subject.

David Blayney Brown
December 2005

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, p.43 no.54 (pl. 64).
2
Ibid., pp.128–9 no.210 (pl.213).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Study for ‘The Wreck of a Transport Ship’ c.1805–10 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2005, 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-study-for-the-wreck-of-a-transport-ship-r1139162, accessed 19 March 2024.