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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > East Anglia, Sussex and Yorkshire 1824 > Brighton and Arundel Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Columbus c.1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Columbus’ c.1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Verso:
?The Columbus c.1824
D18373
Turner Bequest CCX 37a
Pencil on white wove paper, 75 x 118 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Note the length of Main [...] | 4 ¼ of the Main Top’ top centre (continued onto Tate D18374; Turner Bequest CCX 38)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a cursory study of a four-masted barque. Turner has inscribed an annotation which continues onto Tate D18374; Turner Bequest CCX 38: ‘Note the length of Main [...] | 4 ¼ of the Main Top’. This refers to the main mast and main topmast.
The vessel is probably The Columbus, a Canadian freighter which was docked at Blackwall Reach, East London, in late 1824. Turner studies it in more detail on Tate D18392, D18406–D18408; Turner Bequest CCX 49, 57–58.

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘?The Columbus c.1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-columbus-r1181258, accessed 28 May 2025.