Joseph Mallord William Turner

Yachts Sailing in the Solent off East Cowes; a Sunset

1827

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Not on display

Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Windsor and Cowes, Isle of Wight Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 192 × 112 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D20731
Turner Bequest CCXXVI 81

Catalogue entry

The drawings were made in four bands with the page turned vertically. They show yachts under sail in choppy seas, and probably racing in the Solent in the first and third; what seems to be the profile of the East Cowes headland appears in the distance in the third view, seen to the east across the mouth of the River Medina. Squeezed in at the gutter is a spontaneous study of a sunset sky with clouds and rays of light, briefly annotated as alternately red and yellow.
For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events at Cowes from late July 1827 onwards, see the Introduction.
Technical notes:
Except at the edges, formerly protected by a mount, the page has darkened through prolonged exposure while on tour in the Sixth Loan Collection. A manuscript note by Finberg in his 1909 Inventory recorded a ‘Leaf cut out’1 at the point in the sketchbook where this one, listed last in the published sequence, has subsequently been reattached.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, II, p.697.

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