Joseph Mallord William Turner

This is among dozens of blue paper studies presumably made in connection with the Cowes Regatta events in the late summer of 1827; see the Introduction to this subsection. The slightness of the busy pencil work here makes the subject difficult to decipher, but it seems to show a crowd on a waterfront, possibly with flags flying, and a yacht manoeuvring at speed beyond. Alternatively they may be in a rowing boat, like those in Tate D20874 (Turner Bequest CCXXVIII 14). There are various studies of spectators in the sketchbooks associated with this tour, for example a group with a telescope in the Cowes Regatta book (Tate D18052; Turner Bequest CCVII 33).

As noted there, the present work and thirty-four other sheets were recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory as unmounted, and ‘formed part of [a] parcel’ labelled by John Ruskin ‘O. 232. Chalk scrawls on grey. Rubbish.’1

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘232 | O’ top left, upside down; inscribed in pencil ‘CCXXVIII . 21’ bottom right.