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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Folkestone and the Medway c.1821-2 > Medway Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Bow and Bowsprit of a Ship of the Line, in Profile c.1821

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Bow and Bowsprit of a Ship of the Line, in Profile’ c.1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Verso:
The Bow and Bowsprit of a Ship of the Line, in Profile c.1821
D17432
Turner Bequest CXCIX 40a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 190 mm
Partial watermark ‘nard | 20’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The sketch on this page comprises the bow and bowsprit of a ship of the line which is predominantly composed on the facing sheet, folio 41 recto (D17433).1 The whole rendering has been made with the book inverted according to its foliation. Emerging from the gutter, where it connects with the sketch on the following page, the bow of the vessel crosses the top left corner of the page, the bowsprit carrying on off the edge of the paper.

Maud Whatley
January 2016

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.608.

How to cite

Maud Whatley, ‘The Bow and Bowsprit of a Ship of the Line, in Profile c.1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-bow-and-bowsprit-of-a-ship-of-the-line-in-profile-r1184709, accessed 05 April 2026.