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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Boats on Shore, possibly Folkestone c.1822-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boats on Shore, possibly Folkestone’ c.1822-8
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Boats on Shore, possibly Folkestone c.1822–8
D25365
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 243
Watercolour on white wove paper, 156 x 246 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘243’
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII–243’ bottom right

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
A very slight and loosely rendered drawing, Turner scholar Eric Shanes writes that it bears stylistic similarities with other ‘colour beginnings’ and may have even been produced ‘during the same working session’ (see Tate D25383, D25393, D25410, D25422, D25426, D25437; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 260, 270, 287, 299, 303, 314).1 Shanes also proposes that the view is related to a colour study of Folkestone (Tate D17760; Turner Bequest CCIII C).
Turner’s rendering of form is free and fluid. The dilute pigments of the headland merge with those of the sea. Boats on the shore are swiftly articulated with just a few brush-strokes, two fine vertical strokes suggesting their masts. The spontaneity of Turner’s draughtsmanship is made manifest here, the mark making minimal and yet fully evocative of form and atmosphere.

Alice Rylance-Watson
March 2013

1
Shanes 1997, p.61, no.43.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Boats on Shore, possibly Folkestone c.1822–8 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, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-boats-on-shore-possibly-folkestone-r1148226, accessed 27 April 2024.