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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Calais Pier Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Boat Full of People in a Rough Sea, with Shipping Beyond c.1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Boat Full of People in a Rough Sea, with Shipping Beyond’ c.1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 36 Verso:
A Boat Full of People in a Rough Sea, with Shipping Beyond c.1802
D04972
Turner Bequest LXXXI 70
Black and white chalks on blue laid paper, 271 x 436 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and Strasburg lily
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘Our Situation at Calais Bar’ bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–70’ bottom right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, this is one of a series of drawings in this book in which Turner recreates a dangerous moment during his crossing from England to France in 1802; see folios 30 verso–31 recto and 37 recto (D04960–D04961, D04973; Turner Bequest LXXXI 58–59, 71). Finberg, who assumed that Turner took this book with him to France, says:
Turner probably enjoyed the experience as the boat rode in on the waves and was flung aground amid the flying spray. Before the other passengers could land he was on the pier, watching the waves beating against the wooden jetty and the French fishermen putting out to sea. We gather all this from the pages of his sketch–book...1
However, it is much more likely that all these drawings were made later, in England, from memory, in this book which would have been unwieldy in such stressful conditions. There are drawings in other, more pocketable books, such as the Small Calais Pier sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest LXXI), that he may well have made at the time. There are many resemblances between this drawing and the design of a painting Turner had shown at the Royal Academy just before his departure for France, Fishermen upon a Lee–Shore, in Squally Weather (Southampton Art Gallery).2 That too shows a single boat among breakers, with shipping and a jetty in the background.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
See Alexander J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Second Edition, Revised, with a Supplement, by Hilda F. Finberg, revised ed., Oxford 1961, p.82.
2
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.15–16 no.16, pl.12 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Boat Full of People in a Rough Sea, with Shipping Beyond c.1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-boat-full-of-people-in-a-rough-sea-with-shipping-beyond-r1178176, accessed 19 April 2024.