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 Regatta Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Yachts Racing in a Squall 1827

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Yachts Racing in a Squall’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 71 Recto:
Yachts Racing in a Squall 1827
D18126
Turner Bequest CCVII 71
Pencil on white wove paper, 74 x 100 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘71’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCVII – 71’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this dramatic scene of yachts racing in heavy seas below rain clouds is rather more pictorial (particularly with one of the boats being thrown into silhouette) and considered compared with the many slight impressions of craft at speed elsewhere in this sketchbook. It may have been a working idea for the painting East Cowes Castle, the Seat of J. Nash, Esq.; the Regatta Beating to Windward, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1828 (Indianapolis Museum of Art),1 where the conditions are less threatening, if still challenging. For more on studies relating to the regatta events at Cowes from late July 1827 onwards, see the sketchbook Introduction.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.150 no.242, pl.246 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Yachts Racing in a Squall 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, 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-yachts-racing-in-a-squall-r1183614, accessed 26 April 2024.