Joseph Mallord William Turner

A Storm at Folkestone

1845

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Ideas of Folkestone Sketchbook
Medium
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 230 x 328 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D35361
Turner Bequest CCCLVI 1

Catalogue entry

Depicting a section of Folkestone’s coastline in the midst of a storm, Turner has flooded the paper with dilute grey and blue wash, allowing the colours to merge into one another. A dry-brush technique has been used in the foreground, the textured result giving an impression of a choppy sea. The shadowed profile of a headland emerges to the right of the central register, its contours blurred as the wash has bled and feathered.

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2013

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