J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Review at Portsmouth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Fishing Boat in Plymouth Sound 1814

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Fishing Boat in Plymouth Sound’ 1814
Folio 22 Recto:
A Fishing Boat in Plymouth Sound 1814
D10008
Turner Bequest CXXXVI 22
Pencil on white wove paper, 82 x 119 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘22’ bottom left, descending vertically (smudged)
Stamped in black ‘CXXXVI – 22’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, this is a sketch illustrating a fishing boat anchored along a shoreline. In unpublished notes, Turner scholar Eric Shanes listed this sketch as among those in this sketchbook at Gunnislake, up the River Tamar from Plymouth, which is seen on folio 9 recto (D09995) and adjacent pages;1 however, in this case the reference appears incorrect, and the subject is here identified as the shores of Plymouth Sound.
See folios 17 to 23 recto (D10003–D10009) for other drawings in the vicinity. In contrast to the other depictions, Turner has incorporated substantial detail here, observing the shading and reflections of the boats.
1
Eric Shanes, extended draft of ‘The West Country, 1814’ section for Young Mr Turner: The First Forty Years 1775–1815, New Haven and London 2016, email to Matthew Imms, 20 December 2012, Tate catalogue files, unpaginated, note 97.
Verso:
Blank

Vanessa Otim
March 2025

How to cite

Vanessa Otim, ‘A Fishing Boat in Plymouth Sound 1814’, catalogue entry, March 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2026, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/a-fishing-boat-in-plymouth-sound-r1213913, accessed 31 July 2026.