Joseph Mallord William Turner

A Fishing Boat and Crew among Breakers, with Another Boat Farther out to Sea

c.1801–2

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
On a Lee Shore (1) Sketchbook
Medium
Ink and graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 118 × 182 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D03978
Turner Bequest LXVII 5

Catalogue entry

Here the central motif of Turner’s painting Fishermen upon a Lee-Shore, in Squally Weather, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802 (Southampton Art Gallery),1 is studied in some detail. The potential danger of the situation is already apparent from the presence of a man in the water under the boat’s gunwale; the drama is heightened in the drawing on the following pages. Compare several drawings in the contemporary Calais Pier sketchbook (Tate D04986– D04987; Turner Bequest LXXXI 84–85).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.15–16 no.16, pl.12 (colour).

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