Joseph Mallord William Turner

Boats on the River Loire, ?near Ingrandes

c.1826–8

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Loose Studies of Northern France
Medium: Watercolour and gouache and pen and watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Support: 140 × 195 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D24750
Turner Bequest CCLIX 185

Catalogue entry

This colour study on blue paper of sailing vessels on the River Loire is one of three stylistically similar shipping scenes which Turner worked up from his 1826 tour of Northern France. See also D24644 and D24726 (Turner Bequest CCLIX 79, 161).1 Comparable boats to those in this work were noted down in the Nantes, Angers and Saumur sketchbook; see entry for Tate D23158 (Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 4a). The same sketchbook also contains a similar landscape setting, possibly depicting the riverside settlement of Ingrandes; see entry for Tate D23183 (Turner Bequest CCXLVIII 17).

Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.219 no.59.

Technical Notes:

The sheet belongs to a batch of lightweight blue paper used by Turner made by George Steart of Bally, Ellen and Steart at De Montault Mill, Coombe Down, Bath. 1

Ibid. p.238.

Verso:

Inscribed in pencil with the note ’25 | b’ in the centre of the page and ‘CCLIX 185’ towards the bottom left-hand corner. Stamped in black with the Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCLIX – 185’ in the centre of the page.

John Chu
March 2016

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