Joseph Mallord William Turner

This large, elaborate but slightly unfinished design was included in the ‘“Rivers and Ports,” &c.: Finished Drawings’ section of Finberg’s 1909 Turner Bequest Inventory, although as he placed it without further comment at the end of that section, after the ‘Rivers of Devon’ watercolour Ivy Bridge (Tate D18157; Turner Bequest CCVIII X), he presumably did not intend to associate it directly with the smaller and more highly wrought watercolours engraved for the Rivers and Ports of England (for which see Alice Rylance-Watson’s sections dated c.1822–4 and c.1822–8 in the present catalogue).

Tate D25480 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 357) is a rather less finished variation on the theme of the present work, while Twilight – Smugglers off Folkestone Fishing Up Smuggled Gin (private collection),1 exhibited at the engraver and publisher W.B. Cooke’s gallery in 1824 (41)2 is also associated with Cooke’s short-lived Marine Views print scheme (see the Introduction to this section);3 it was subsequently engraved by Thomas Lupton in the same format as the two published designs he had worked on, but not issued; see the entry for Tate’s impression (T05197) for further discussion. This was possibly because of the breakdown in relations between Turner and Cooke in 1827, or perhaps it was abandoned as its lawless subject might be regarded as a contentious one to put before the public; that would have been even more of an issue here, with the detailed depiction of criminal activities centre stage.

David Brown has suggested that ‘so accurate are Turner’s rendering ... that it is likely that he went out with smugglers to observe their methods’.4 Compare two subjects associated with the later Picturesque Views in England and Wales series which were probably not pursued on the grounds of potential controversy, depicting a parliamentary election in Northampton in 1830 (Tate T12321) and the fiery destruction of Parliament itself in 1834 (Tate D36235; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 373). Nevertheless, other aspects of smuggling associated with Folkestone are shown in watercolours for Cooke’s Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England (Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati),5 engraved in 1826 (Tate impression: T05254) and England and Wales (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven),6 engraved in 1831 (Tate impressions: T04570, T04571).7 For a comprehensive summary of the port in Turner’s drawings from the 1810s through to 1845, see Alice Rylance-Watson’s Introduction to the Ideas of Folkestone sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCCLVI) in the ‘Kent Coast and Whaling c.1844–5’ section.