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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Folkestone and the Medway c.1821-2 > Medway Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Bowsprit of a Vessel c.1821

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Bowsprit of a Vessel’ c.1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Verso:
The Bowsprit of a Vessel c.1821
D17430
Turner Bequest CXCIX 39a
Pencil on white wove paper, 190 x 112 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Bow’, ‘Royal Stay’, and ‘GH’ top centre, ‘[?S...L...]’ and ‘2 Jib G’ towards top left, ‘[?Jig S Sheet]’ and ‘[?G s...]’ towards left, ‘Lift’ centre, towards top, ‘H’ centre, towards right, ‘martingal[e]’ at centre, ‘Back [?Ropes]’ right of centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As identified by Finberg, the drawing on this page is a detail of a ship’s rigging, specifically the bowsprit.1
Made with the page turned vertically, this drawing is confined within the top portion of the sheet. Composed at a diagonal, reflecting Turner’s position on the deck of the vessel, the bowsprit stretches from its heel at right, inscribed ‘H’ by Turner, to the tip of the jib boom at the top edge, towards the left. The artist demonstrates intense interest in the complex network of ropes and timber, inscribing particular elements as he goes.
Gerald Wilkinson reproduces an image of this page in support of his statement that in this sketchbook and the Folkestone sketchbook of around 1821–2 (Tate; Turner Bequest CXCVIII), ‘the pencil is hard and the detail remarkably thorough, even for [Turner]’.2

Maud Whatley
January 2016

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.608.
2
Wilkinson 1975, p.22.

How to cite

Maud Whatley, ‘The Bowsprit of a Vessel c.1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-bowsprit-of-a-vessel-r1184707, accessed 26 April 2024.