Joseph Mallord William Turner

Boats, with Houses Beyond ?at or near Bruges

1824

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: Rivers Meuse and Moselle Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 78 × 118 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D19890
Turner Bequest CCXVI 169 a

Catalogue entry

These rough and swiftly executed sketches show two river landscapes: the uppermost with boats sailing close to a small harbour with windmills, cylindrical towers with conical spires, and a church with a narrowly tapering steeple. The same architecture is depicted at a distance on Tate D19892; Turner Bequest CCXVI 170 a.

The lowermost sketch appears to show boats on open water, with a stormy sky beyond. There is a final view, diminutive in scale and squared off at bottom left, showing the meander of a river in a flat rural landscape. The absence of clearly identifiable features makes it difficult to be exact about the location, but it is likely that Turner pictures a river in Flanders, perhaps near Bruges.

Alice Rylance-Watson
June 2014

Read full Catalogue entry