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 View of Boats in a Bay c.1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of Boats in a Bay’ c.1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Verso:
View of Boats in a Bay circa 1819
D13941
Turner Bequest CLXXII 5 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 99 x 155 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The rough pencil sketch on this page shows a view of a bay with boats in the foreground. Owing to the schematic nature of the drawing, the location remains unidentified. It may represent an Italian subject dating from Turner’s travels in 1819. However, the position of the sketch interrupts the continuity of Turner’s notes from Eustace’s A Classical Tour of Italy, suggesting that it could predate the artist’s use of the book as a repository for notes in preparation for his first trip to Italy.

Nicola Moorby
July 2008

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of Boats in a Bay 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-view-of-boats-in-a-bay-r1138762, accessed 23 April 2024.