In Tate Britain
Prints and Drawings Room
View by appointment- Artist
- Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
- Part of
- Dover
- Medium
- Graphite and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 256 x 361 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
- Reference
- D00169
Turner Bequest XVI G
Display caption
When Turner was young he often stayed with his mother's relatives in Margate; some of his earliest marine images feature the surrounding Kent coastline. This unfinished watercolour shows a stormy sea at Dover. The large windlass (a capstan for hoisting heavy weights) and the flagstaff on the pier have been left in pencil outline.
However, Turner has used watercolour washes to convey the surging movement of the waves and the threatening nature of the sky. The subdued colour palette of grey, green and blue is characteristic of late-eighteenth-century watercolour painting.
Gallery label, July 2008
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Joseph Mallord William Turner Dover: The Pier Seen from the Shore; Sailing Boats at Sea
1793
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?1793
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?1793
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin Dover Harbour, with a Ship being Overhauled
1795–6
Joseph Mallord William Turner Dover: The End of the Pier, with Men Round a Boat
?1793
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin Dover: A Two-Master in the Harbour, with the Castle Beyond
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c.1792–3
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin Dover Harbour, with Shipping being Overhauled
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Joseph Mallord William Turner A Sailing Ship Foundering in Heavy Seas, Seen from Above
1796–7
Joseph Mallord William Turner Boats in Dover Harbour, after John Henderson I
?c.1794–7
After Thomas Girtin, formerly attributed to Joseph Mallord William Turner Coast Scene, with Boat in the Foreground - near Dover
?c.1794–7
Joseph Mallord William Turner Shipping off the Coast, near Dover
?c.1794–5
Joseph Mallord William Turner Dover, Pier and Castle, after Henderson
?c.1794–7
Joseph Mallord William Turner Dover: The Castle and Pier from the Harbour
1793
Joseph Mallord William Turner Ships in a Breeze (‘The Egremont Sea Piece’)
c.1806–7