Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Columbus Moored at Blackwall

c.1824

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Brighton and Arundel Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 75 × 118 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D18392
Turner Bequest CCX 49

Catalogue entry

Here Turner has produced a study of the four-masted barque The Columbus, which arrived off the south coast of England at the end of October 1824.1 She launched from the Isle of Orleans, Quebec, in July of that year, laden with over six thousand tons of timber bound for London. Having sprung a leak earlier in her voyage, she was hauled with the help of a fleet of pilots and steam tugs to Blackwall Reach in the East End of London. Turner pictures her moored at Blackwall in the present drawing, inscribing the note ‘Clumbus | Whale Smack’ close by. The Columbus is depicted elsewhere in this sketchbook on Tate D18406–D18407; Turner Bequest CCX 57–57a.

See catalogue entry for ‘The Columbus Captn Wm McKellar. As She Appears opposite the Folley House, Blackwall Reach’, Royal Museums Greenwich, accessed 24 February 2015, http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/102536.html and Ian Warrell, Turner’s Sketchbooks, London 2014, p.128.

Verso:

Blank.

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2015

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