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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Rivers of England c.1822-4 > 'Rivers of England' Watercolours > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Mouth of the River Humber c.1824-5

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Mouth of the River Humber’ c.1824-5
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Mouth of the River Humber c.1824–5
D18151
Turner Bequest CCVIII R
Gouache and watercolour on white wove watercolour paper, 162 x 242 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram, bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view encompasses Spurn Head at the right and Grimsby in the distance on the left where a parade of vessels can be seen anchored in the river. Grimsby is framed compositionally by a vortical shape formed by the space created between the arc of storm clouds above and the curving swell of the waves below. Turner has applied swift strokes of gouache to accentuate the turbulent swell of the Humber.
Eric Shanes writes that ‘As was common in most of his marine vistas, Turner eschewed the even distribution of his shipping across a wide arena and instead jumbled it all up together, reveling in the variety of abstract forms that such a juxtaposition creates’.1 The same effect is found in the shipping in The Medway watercolour for the Rivers series (Tate D18149; Turner Bequest CCVIII P). In the foreground sailors in a Billy-boy (a form of river barge and coasting vessel) battle against a squall, orientating the rigging to control the force and velocity of the wind through the sails. Behind it is a brig tacking in the opposite direction, and last, in the middle distance, a man-of-war at anchor. Shanes notes that ‘the design in unified by a subtle arabesque line which runs around and down the emerging line of light in the distance on the left, along the Billy-boy’s gunwale, and up the edge of its mainsail back into the sky and beyond’.2 The tempestuous and dynamic view is aptly described by Barbara Hofland, who writes that the Humber here ‘partakes the character which generally belongs to that mighty congregation of water when pent between banks and fretted by obstacles’.3
Finberg suggests that a colour study for this drawing may be found in Turner’s Ports of England sketchbook of about 1822–3 (Tate D17739; Turner Bequest CCII 20).4 He also lists four pencil sketches on loose sheets as being possible studies for the shipping in this watercolour (Tate D17762–D17765; Turner Bequest CCIII E–F).5
This drawing was engraved in mezzotint by George Henry Phillips and published in September 1826 (Tate impressions T04813 and T04814).
1
Shanes 1990, p.112, no.87 (colour).
2
Ibid.
3
Hofland 1827, p.6, pl.3.
4
Finberg 1909, vol.2, p.615, no.20.
5
Ibid, pp.616–7.
Verso:
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCVIII R’ at centre; inscribed in pencil ‘CCVIII R’ and ‘39’ at centre towards left.

Alice Rylance-Watson
March 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘The Mouth of the River Humber c.1824–5 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-mouth-of-the-river-humber-r1146214, accessed 18 April 2024.