Boats on Shore, with a Distant Ship

c.1799–1805

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Calais Pier Sketchbook
Medium: Chalk on paper
Dimensions: Support: 271 x 436 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D04925
Turner Bequest LXXXI 24

Catalogue entry

Made with the page turned horizontally, this design, which seems to emerge from the studies for the watercolour Lake Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake of about 1805 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven;1 see under folio 8 verso; D04917; Turner Bequest LXXXI 16), appears to be connected with the painting of Sun Rising through Vapour; Fishermen Cleaning and Selling Fish, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807 (National Gallery, London).2

Related studies are on folios 13 verso, 17 verso, 20 verso and 29 verso (D04927, D04935, D04941, D04958; Turner Bequest LXXXI 26, 34, 40, 56); see also the Studies for Pictures sketchbook (Tate D04133; Turner Bequest LXIX 116).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.342 no.370, reproduced.

Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.53–4 no.69, pl.79 (colour).

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