Joseph Mallord William Turner

Fishermen Launching a Boat

1801

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Not on display

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Chester Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 161 × 256 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D05155
Turner Bequest LXXXII 75 a

Catalogue entry

The study was made with the page turned horizontally. The pencil drawing in the background, of a fishing boat seen in steep foreshortening, relates the page clearly to the painting Fishermen upon a Lee–Shore, in Squally Weather, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802 (Southampton Art Gallery), though Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll do not list it in their entry for that work.1 One of the figures has been rubbed out by Turner.

This is one of four drawings connected with the painting in this sketchbook; see also folios 76 recto opposite, 77 verso and the inside of the back cover (D05156–D05158; Turner Bequest 76, 76a, 77).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.15–16 no.16, pl.12 (colour).

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