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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Italian Guide Book Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Vessels c.1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Vessels’ c.1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Verso:
Vessels circa 1819
D13979
Turner Bequest CLXXII 25 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 99 x 155 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains a rough drawing of boats. The mast and sail of the ship on the right is clearly visible whilst the outline of the vessel on the left suggests a steamboat tug, similar to the one in Turner’s famous painting, The Fighting ‘Temeraire’, Tugged to Her Last Berth to be Broken Up 1838 (National Gallery, London).1 Turner frequently sketched ships and boats which feature heavily in many of his paintings. This study may predate the artist’s use of the sketchbook as a notebook relating to his Italian travels in the autumn of 1819.

Nicola Moorby
July 2008

1
B&J 377.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Vessels c.1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-vessels-r1138800, accessed 18 April 2024.