Joseph Mallord William Turner

Sailing Vessels

c.1799–1802

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Studies for Pictures Sketchbook
Medium: Ink and graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 135 × 210 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D04023
Turner Bequest LXIX 29

Catalogue entry

As Finberg suggests,1 this study, made with the page turned horizontally, is related to the genesis of the Ships Bearing Up for Anchorage (‘The Egremont Seapiece’) of 1802 (Tate T03868, on display at Petworth House, Sussex).2 The series of sketches beginning on this page and running to folios 32 recto (D04026), 40 verso–41 recto (D04043–D04044), and 90 recto (D04105; Turner Bequest LXIX 91) are all associated by Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll with the same picture, though as they point out the connection is clearer in some cases than in others.

See Finberg 1909, I, p.171.

Butlin and Joll 1984, p.17 no.18, pl.14 (colour).

Verso:

Blank

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

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