Joseph Mallord William Turner

Study for ‘The Shipwreck’: A Sinking Ship and a Boat in Rough Seas

c.1805

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Shipwreck (1) Sketchbook
Medium
Dimensions
Support: 118 × 185 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D05386
Turner Bequest LXXXVII 11

Catalogue entry

The foreground with a deep wave trough and small sailing boat anticipates Turner’s picture The Shipwreck (Tate N00476),1 but the wrecked ship in the background is positioned differently. See Introduction to the sketchbook for the picture. The drawing is badly faded from long exposure in the First Loan Collection, where it was shown together with the present folio 14 (D05384; Turner Bequest LXXXVII 9) as ‘Two sketches of Wrecks’.

David Blayney Brown
December 2005

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.43 no.54 (pl. 64).

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