Joseph Mallord William Turner

Sailing Boats ?Moored off a Quay

1827

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Cowes, the River Medina and Shipping
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 143 × 199 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D20870
Turner Bequest CCXXVIII 10

Catalogue entry

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 for other generic harbour and coastal scenes. The drawing here is so provisional that the relationship of the boats and harbour is difficult to discern, with little clue as to the location, which may be Cowes or East Cowes.

As noted in the Introduction, 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

Finberg 1909, II, p.702.

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘232 | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCXXVIII . 10’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

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