Joseph Mallord William Turner

Figures in an Interior, Perhaps Mending a Boat

1811

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

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Not on display

Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 75 × 117 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D08622
Turner Bequest CXXIII 134 a

Catalogue entry

The heavy shading of the wall and beams gives this drawing a contre-jour effect suggesting that the setting is indoors. There seem to be about a dozen figures, only the nearest of which are drawn with any clarity, gathered round what may be a small boat (with its stern at the left) in a boat-shed Turner observed on the coast of the West Country.
There is another study of figures in a dark interior on folio 142 verso (D08631; CXXIII 139a), although the two scenes appear otherwise unrelated.

Matthew Imms
June 2011

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