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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Isle of Wight 1827 > Cowes, the River Medina and Shipping > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Paddle Steamer Departing from a Harbour, Perhaps Cowes 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Paddle Steamer Departing from a Harbour, Perhaps Cowes’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Paddle Steamer Departing from a Harbour, Perhaps Cowes 1827
D24872
Turner Bequest CCLX 36
Chalk, ink and wash on blue wove paper, 140 x 190 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLX – 36’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is among dozens of blue paper studies presumably made in connection with the Cowes Regatta events in the late summer of 1827; see the Introduction to this subsection for other generic harbour and coastal scenes. The setting is uncertain, but may be Cowes itself, where the waterfront has since been much redeveloped. The steamer getting under way at the centre seems to be the same as that shown arriving in Tate D24871 (Turner Bequest CCLX 35); see the Introduction for similar sheets elsewhere including another showing what seems to be the same steamer.
Like several others in the present subsection, this drawing was categorised in Finberg’s 1909 inventory in one of the sections of works on blue paper ‘mostly connected with “French Rivers”’.1
1
See Finberg 1909, II, pp.806–13, CCLX, ‘Pencil and ink on blue paper: mostly connected with “French Rivers” series’, c.1830; see also Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.116 no.389, associating it with the French rivers; see also Warrell 1991, p.65 and Warrell 1999, pp.30, 253 note 84, linking it to the Cowes material.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in red ink ?by John Ruskin ‘[?3...]’ bottom left; inscribed in pencil ‘45b’ right of centre and ‘CCLX – 36’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLX – 36’ right of centre.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Paddle Steamer Departing from a Harbour, Perhaps Cowes 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-paddle-steamer-departing-from-a-harbour-perhaps-cowes-r1183446, accessed 25 April 2024.