Joseph Mallord William Turner

Here Turner has lightly applied watercolour to a sketch of fishing port to reinforce a sense of compositional depth. The quayside vignette of a standing figure and bobbing sailboats towards the bottom right is brought forward and darkened by two or three layers of ochre while the sky and high horizon line are pushed back with faint stripes of greyish blue. Fishing was important to the economies of Boulogne, Wimereux, and Ambleteuse, although too little information is recorded here to suggest a specific location.1

Verso:

Blank, except for small patches of watercolour transferred from folio 10 recto opposite (D35413; Turner Bequest CCCLVIII 11).