Joseph Mallord William Turner

Studies of a Stern and Bows; a Warship at Anchor; a Sailing Boat Passing Ships

1827

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Cowes Regatta Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 100 × 74 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D18036
Turner Bequest CCVII 25

Catalogue entry

With the page turned vertically, at the top left and right are studies of the stern and bows of a ship or ships; across the middle is a distant view of a large three-masted warship at anchor; and at the bottom is a crowded scene of a sailing boat passing three or more ships.

The central ship is comparable with the one moored in the background of the oil Sketch for ‘East Cowes Castle, the Regatta Beating to Windward’ No.3, of 1827 (Tate N01993),1 and the finished painting East Cowes Castle, the Seat of J. Nash, Esq.; the Regatta Beating to Windward, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1828 (Indianapolis Museum of Art).2 For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events at Cowes from late July 1827 onwards, see the sketchbook Introduction.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.160 no.262, pl.267 (colour).

Ibid., p.150 no.242, pl.246 (colour).

Read full Catalogue entry