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

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Joseph Mallord William Turner A Study of a Group of Sailing Boats; Architectural Details of Spires, Towers and Gateways around Calais, Including the Porte de la Mer on the Quay of the Bassin du Paradis 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Study of a Group of Sailing Boats; Architectural Details of Spires, Towers and Gateways around Calais, Including the Porte de la Mer on the Quay of the Bassin du Paradis’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 238 Recto:
A Study of a Group of Sailing Boats; Architectural Details of Spires, Towers and Gateways around Calais, Including the Porte de la Mer on the Quay of the Bassin du Paradis 1825
D19312
Turner Bequest CCXIV 238
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘I [?Colms]’ and ‘L Port’ top right, over archways
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘38’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXIV – 238’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turned horizontally, the page comprises a central study of sailing boats and various slight architectural details of towers, spires, and more precise annotated studies of rusticated Baroque gateways. The setting for all is presumably Calais, aspects of which are shown on adjacent pages (see under folio 237 recto; D19310).
The same gateways are shown side by side among numerous Calais subjects in 1824’s Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook (Tate D19578; Turner Bequest CCXVI 14). The voluted one at the top right is the Porte de la Mer, which formerly overlooked the south-west corner of the Bassin du Paradis, as seen in old photographs. It was demolished in the 1880s,1 while severe damage in the Second World War and subsequent developments have left little else from Turner’s time in its vicinity. The two gateways appear to be shown in one of the harbour views on folio 239 verso (D19315).
A single archway features along the quay in the background of an untraced watercolour2 engraved as Calais, a vignette for Walter Scott’s Prose Works in 1836 (Tate impressions: T04761, T04993). See this sketchbook’s Introduction for discussion of its many shipping studies.

Matthew Imms
September 2020

1
See photographs and text at ‘La porte de la Mer face au bassin du Paradis’, Calais Avant-hier, accessed 25 August 2020, http://calais-avant-hier.eklablog.com/la-porte-de-la-mer-face-au-bassin-du-paradis-a115161518.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.434 no.1131.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Study of a Group of Sailing Boats; Architectural Details of Spires, Towers and Gateways around Calais, Including the Porte de la Mer on the Quay of the Bassin du Paradis 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-study-of-a-group-of-sailing-boats-architectural-details-of-r1202664, accessed 16 July 2025.