Joseph Mallord William Turner

Drawn with the page turned horizontally, this composition study is perhaps related to the landscape that Turner drew in his contemporary Lancashire and North Wales sketchbook (Tate D01937; Turner Bequest XLV 19a), and a watercolour study which is perhaps an unfinished work connected with his project to illustrate the destruction of the Welsh Bards (Tate D04165; Turner Bequest LXX N).

There is a study on folio 47 verso (D01870; Turner Bequest 46a) which has a similar broad landscape punctuated by two trees, in which boat-building activity seems to be in train in the foreground; it has the air of an ancient, perhaps classical subject. See also folio 46 verso (D01868; Turner Bequest XLIII 45a), where another view with distant hills has ships on a waterway in the foreground.