Joseph Mallord William Turner

Beached or Moored Sailing Boats

1827

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

License this image

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Cowes, the River Medina and Shipping
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 149 × 195 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D20863
Turner Bequest CCXXVIII 3

Catalogue entry

This is among dozens of blue paper studies presumably made in connection with the Cowes Regatta events in the late summer of 1827; see the Introduction to this subsection for other generic harbour and coastal scenes. Here the slight pencil work indicates the jumbled masts of several boats, with some at angles indicating that the vessels are beached.

As noted in the Introduction, the present work and eight other sheets were recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory as mounted, and ‘formed part of a bundle’ labelled by John Ruskin ‘O. 166. Shipping, &c. rubbish’,1 although the nine are now all numbered ‘232 | O’ on their versos in common with the rest of the Turner Bequest CCXXVIII grouping, which Finberg noted as unmounted and ‘part of parcel endorsed, “O. 232. Chalk scrawls on grey. Rubbish.”’2

Finberg 1909, II, p.702.

Ibid.

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘232 | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCXXVIII . 3’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

Read full Catalogue entry