Joseph Mallord William Turner

A Sailing Ship Foundering in Heavy Seas, Seen from Above

1796–7

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Wilson Sketchbook
Medium
Gouache, graphite and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 113 x 93 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D01205
Turner Bequest XXXVII 88

Catalogue entry

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the composition continues across folio 44 recto opposite (D01206; Turner Bequest XXXVII 89). This study anticipates several of the stormy marines that Turner was to produce in the first decade of the new century, notably Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board (‘The Bridgewater Seapiece’) of 1801 (private collection),1 and the watercolour of the Loss of an East Indiaman of about 1818 (formerly ‘Loss of a Man of War’; The Higgins Bedford).2

Andrew Wilton
September 2012

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.12–13 no.14, pl.11 (colour).
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.357 no.500.

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