Joseph Mallord William Turner

Sea and Sky

c.1825–30

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Medium: Watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Support: 431 × 305 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D25237
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 115

Display caption

Many of the watercolour studies, or ‘colour beginnings’, would have been painted very rapidly. In some instances Turner would have worked on several sheets at once, moving to a similar study while he waited for the paint to dry on another.

This sheet shows two separate seascapes which were never detached from one another. The proximity of the two images and the shared colour palette suggests that Turner worked on them simultaneously. Furthermore, the right hand edge of the paper shows that the sheet was originally even larger and contained additional studies.

Gallery label, July 2008

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Catalogue entry

This is one of a large number of sketches on loose sheets of paper depicting coastal terrain and seagoing vessels in various combinations. For the grouping and dating of these works to the middle and later periods of Turner’s career, see the section introduction.

Verso:

Pencil notes reading ‘CCLXIII 115 [...] | 115 [...]’, ‘AB 930 | 0’, ‘115’. Stamped in black with the Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCLXIII – 115’.

John Chu
June 2015

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