J.M.W. Turner
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Project overview
Joseph Mallord William Turner Burning Blubber c.1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Burning Blubber
c.1845
Burning Blubber c.1845
D35246
Turner Bequest CCCLIII 7
Turner Bequest CCCLIII 7
Chalk and watercolour on white wove paper prepared with a grey wash, 221 x 332 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman | Turkey Mills | 1823’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘7’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLIII 7’ bottom right
Watermark ‘J Whatman | Turkey Mills | 1823’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘7’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLIII 7’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1974
Turner 1775–1851, Royal Academy, London, November 1974–March 1975 (633, as ‘Whalers Boiling Blubber’, c.1845).
1977
Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, International Exhibitions Foundation tour, Cleveland Museum of Art, September–November 1977, Detroit Institute of Arts, December 1977–February 1978, Philadelphia Museum of Art, March–April (73, as ‘Whalers Boiling Blubber’, c.1845, reproduced).
1983
J.M.W. Turner: Dibujos y acuarelas del Museo Británico, exhibition catalogue, Museo del Prado, Madrid, February–March 1983 (99, as ‘Balleneros cociendo grasa de ballena’, c.1845, reproduced).
1983
J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, October 1983–January 1984 (229, as ‘Pêcheurs de baleines faisant bouillir de la graisse’, c.1845, reproduced).
1986
Turner Exhibition, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, August–October 1986, Municipal Museum of Art, Kyoto, October–November 1986 (109, as ‘Whalers boiling Blubber’, c.1845, reproduced in colour).
1998
Turner and the Scientists, Tate Gallery, London, March–June 1998 (92, as ‘Burning Blubber’, mid 1840s, reproduced).
2007
Hockney on Turner Watercolours, Tate Britain, London, June 2007–February 2008 (not in catalogue, as ‘Burning Blubber’).
2011
William Turner. Maler der Elemente / Turner and the Elements, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, June–September 2011, Muzeum Narodowe, Krakow, October–January 2012, Turner Contemporary, Margate, January–May 2012 (70, as ‘Burning Blubber’, c.1844–5, reproduced in colour).
2017
Legacies: JMW Turner and Contemporary Art Practice, New Art Gallery Walsall, September 2017–January 2018 (no catalogue).
2014
Late Turner: Painting Set Free, Tate Britain, London, September 2014–January 2015, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, February–May 2015, de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, June–September 2015, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, October 2015–January 2016 (105, as ‘Burning Blubber’, c.1845, reproduced in colour; exhibited in London only).
2017
Legacies: JMW Turner and Contemporary Art Practice, New Art Gallery Walsall, September 2017–January 2018 (no catalogue).
2020
Turner’s Modern World, Tate Britain, London, October 2020–September 2021, Kimbell Museum of Art, Fort Worth, October 2021–February 2022, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, March–July 2022 (no number, as ‘Burning Blubber’, c.1845; London showing intermittent, owing to pandemic).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.1162, CCCLIII 7, as ‘Do. [i.e. ditto: Burning blubber]’.
1972
Kenneth Clark, Michael Kitson, John Gage and others, La Peinture romantique anglaise et les Préraphaélites, exhibition catalogue, Petit Palais, Paris 1972, p.[190] under no.276.
1845
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.146 under no.524, pp.171–2 no.633, as ‘Whalers Boiling Blubber’, c.1845.
1975
Graham Reynolds, Turner 1775–1851: zhivopis', risunok, akvarel', exhibition catalogue, Hermitage Museum, Leningrad 1975, p.43 under no.65.
1845
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art 1977, pp.17, 92 no.73, as ‘Whalers Boiling Blubber’, c.1845, reproduced.
1845
Lindsay Stainton and Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: Dibujos y acuarelas del Museo Británico, exhibition catalogue, Museo del Prado, Madrid 1983, pp.102–3 no.99, as ‘Balleneros cociendo grasa de ballena’, c.1845, reproduced.
1845
Andrew Wilton in John Gage, Jerrold Ziff, Nicholas Alfrey and others, J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, exhibition catalogue, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris 1983, pp.282–3 no.229, as ‘Pêcheurs de baleines faisant bouillir de la graisse’, c.1845, reproduced.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.261 under no.414, 271 under no.426.
1845
Haruki Yaegashi, Martin Butlin, Evelyn Joll and others, Turner Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo 1986, p.264 no.109, as ‘Whalers boiling Blubber’, c.1845, reproduced in colour p.265.
1845
Robert K. Wallace, Turner & Melville: Spheres of Love and Fright, Athens [Georgia] and London 1992, pp.536–7, fig.149, as ‘Burning Blubber’, c.1845.
1993
Robert Upstone, Turner: The Final Years: Watercolours 1840–1851, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1993, p.59 under no.52.
1998
James Hamilton, Turner and the Scientists, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery 1998, p.140 no.92, as ‘Burning Blubber’, mid 1840s, fig.114.
1844
Inés Richter-Musso, Ortrud Westheider and others, Turner and the Elements, exhibition catalogue, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg 2011, pp.47, 183, 196 no.70, as ‘Burning Blubber’, c.1844–5, reproduced in colour.
1845
Amy Concannon in David Blayney Brown, Concannon and Sam Smiles (eds.), Late Turner: Painting Set Free, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2014, pp.170–1 no.105, as ‘Burning Blubber’, c.1845, reproduced in colour p.171.
1844
Ian Warrell, Turner’s Sketchbooks, London 2014, reproduced in colour p.214, as ‘Burning Blubber’, c.1844–5.
1845
Alison Hokanson in Thomas P. Campbell and Hokanson, Turner’s Whaling Pictures, exhibition catalogue (reprinted from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, vol.73, no.4, Spring 2016), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2016, p.[36] fig.34 (colour), as ‘Burning Blubber’, c.1845, p.37.
1845
David Blayney Brown and others, Turner’s Modern World, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2020, p.229, as ‘Boiling Blubber’, c.1845.
This vigorously worked sketch, in which Turner imagines the spectacular effects of the process of burning whale blubber, displays his preoccupation with dramatic juxtapositions, particularly light and dark. The page is divided in half by the luminous glow of the fire on the right and dense black smoke on the left.
Andrew Wilton has called attention to the application of a grey wash in the preparation of the sheet, an unusual technique for Turner, and has also perceived the layering of media here as reflective of his approach to building up tonal contrast in oils of this later period like the associated painting Whalers (Boiling Blubber) Entangled in Flaw Ice, Endeavouring to Extricate Themselves (Tate N00547).1
The spiked white shape has been interpreted by Robert K. Wallace as the rib of a whale.2
Technical Notes:
As with other leaves from this sketchbook (D35245, D35247; CCCLIII 6, 8) Turner’s coverage of the page has revealed a relief of the Whatman watermark, which appears upside down in the upper part of the sheet. The leaf shows discolouration at the edges, particularly along the right, probably as a result of Tate Gallery flood of 1928. The leaf is mounted.
Verso:
Blank, apart from a continuation of black watercolour wash containing thumbprints at the right-hand edge; offsetting in yellow, red and black chalk, and some staining, probably as a result of the 1928 Tate flood.
Amy Concannon
How to cite
‘Burning Blubber c.1845’, catalogue entry, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2026, https://www