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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Figures and Moored Sailing Boats in Dunkirk Harbour, ?with a Steamboat 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Figures and Moored Sailing Boats in Dunkirk Harbour, ?with a Steamboat’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 231 Verso:
Figures and Moored Sailing Boats in Dunkirk Harbour, ?with a Steamboat 1825
D19299
Turner Bequest CCXIV 231a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, this slight drawing shows figures on a quay, with the masts of moored boats and what may be wisps of smoke from a small steamboat’s funnel. As with the more detailed sketches on the recto and folio 232 recto opposite (D19298, D19300), the setting is presumably the harbour at Dunkirk; it and the city in general have seen much development and war damage, making the precise viewpoint difficult to establish. For other views here and elsewhere, see under folio 227 verso (D19291).

Matthew Imms
September 2020

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Figures and Moored Sailing Boats in Dunkirk Harbour, ?with a Steamboat 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-figures-and-moored-sailing-boats-in-dunkirk-harbour-with-a-r1202651, accessed 05 April 2026.