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 for others showing shipping under sail and in some cases apparently racing.

As noted there, the present work and eight other sheets were recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory as mounted, and ‘formed part of a bundle’ labelled by John Ruskin ‘O. 166. Shipping, &c. rubbish’,1 although the nine are now all numbered ‘232 | O’ on their versos in common with the rest of the Turner Bequest CCXXVIII grouping, which Finberg noted as unmounted and ‘part of parcel endorsed, “O. 232. Chalk scrawls on grey. Rubbish.”’2

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘232 | O’ top left, upside down; inscribed in pencil ‘CCXXVIII . 4’ bottom right.