J.M.W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset c.1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset
c.1845
Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset c.1845
D35260
Turner Bequest CCCLIII 21
Turner Bequest CCCLIII 21
Watercolour and chalk on white wove paper containing traces of metallic particles, prepared with a grey wash, 221 x 325 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman | Turkey Mills | 1823’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLIII–21’ bottom right
Watermark ‘J Whatman | Turkey Mills | 1823’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLIII–21’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1904
National Gallery, London, various dates to at least 1904 (744, as ‘Tunny fishing, Mediterranean’).
1987
Turner and the Channel: Themes and Variations c.1845, Tate Gallery, London, October–December 1987 (27, as ‘Tunny Fishing’, c.1844–5, reproduced).
1993
Turner: The Final Years: Watercolours 1840–1851, Tate Gallery, February–May 1993 (54, as ‘‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced).
2003
Turner: The Late Seascapes, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, June–September 2003, Manchester Art Gallery, October 2003–January 2004, Burrell Collection, Glasgow, February–May 2004 (no number, as ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced in colour; exhibited at Manchester and Glasgow only).
2006
Turner and the Natural World, Tate Britain, London, April–October 2006 (no catalogue).
2014
Late Turner: Painting Set Free, Tate Britain, London, September 2014–January 2015, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, February–May 2015, de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, June–September 2015, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, October 2015–January 2016 (104, as ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced in colour; exhibited in London only).
2017
Legacies: JMW Turner and Contemporary Art Practice, New Art Gallery Walsall, September 2017–January 2018 (no catalogue).
2019
Turner: The Sea and the Alps, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, July–October 2019 (no number, as ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced in colour).
2019
Turner: Horror and Delight, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster, November 2019–January 2020 (91, as ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced in colour).
2020
J.M.W Turner: Quest for the Sublime, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, February–September 2020 (no catalogue).
2021
Turner et le sublime, Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec, February–May 2021 (no number, as ‘Monstres marins et navires au soleil couchant / Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced in colour).
References
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn eds., Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, p. 640 no.744, as ‘Tunny fishing, Mediterranean’.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.1162, CCCLIII 21, as ‘Tunny fishing, Mediterranean ... Exhibited Drawings, No. 744, N.G.’.
1972
John Gage in Kenneth Clark, Michael Kitson, Gage and others, La Peinture romantique anglaise et les Préraphaélites, exhibition catalogue, Petit Palais, Paris 1972, p.[190] under no.275.
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.140 under no.507.
1975
Graham Reynolds, Turner 1775–1851: zhivopis', risunok, akvarel', exhibition catalogue, Hermitage Museum, Leningrad 1975, p.48 under no.81.
1984
Craig Hartley, Turner Watercolours in the Whitworth Art Gallery, exhibition catalogue, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester 1984, p.61 under no.51.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.289 under no.473.
1987
David Blayney Brown, Turner and the Channel: Themes and Variations c.1845, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1987, pp.18, 23 no.27, as CCCLIII ‘f.3’, ‘Tunny Fishing’, c.1844–5, fig.8.
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolours in the Clore Gallery, London 1987, p.148, as ‘Sea-monsters and vessels at sunset’, 1844, reproduced in colour p.[149].
1845
Robert Upstone, Turner: The Final Years: Watercolours 1840–1851, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1993, p.60 no.54, as ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced.
1845
James Hamilton, Turner: The Late Seascapes, exhibition catalogue, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown 2003, pp.99, 107, 148 note 21, p.156, as ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, fig.65 (colour).
1845
Amy Concannon in David Blayney Brown, Concannon and Sam Smiles (eds.), Late Turner: Painting Set Free, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2014, p.170 no.104, as ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced in colour.
2014
Ian Warrell, Turner’s Sketchbooks, London 2014, reproduced in colour p.214, as ‘f.22’, ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1844–5.
1845
David Blayney Brown and others, Turner: The Sea and the Alps, exhibition catalogue, Kunstmuseum Luzern 2019, reproduced in colour p.123, p.178, as ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845.
1845
David Blayney Brown, Tanja Pirsig-Marshall, Marie Meeth and others, Turner: Horror and Delight, exhibition catalogue, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster 2019, p.216 no 91, as ‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced in colour p.217, p.253.
1845
André Gilbert (ed.), Turner et le sublime, exhibition catalogue, Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec 2020, reproduced in colour p.121, as ‘Monstres marins et navires au soleil couchant’, c.1845, p.143, as / Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset’, c.1845, reproduced in colour).
In this drawing lightly sketched-in ships are shown, perhaps being lashed by a downpour, sailing into the sunset. Breaking the surface of the sea in the foreground are several fish, seemingly giant by comparison to the scale of the ships behind them. Seen in this context these fish appear to represent Turner exercising his imagination for fantastical and monstrous sea creatures, as in the painting Sunrise with Sea Monsters (Tate N01990);1 the similarity has been noted by Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll.2
John Gage has suggested that this interest was spurred in Turner after his reading of Walk the Third: Summer – Moonlight in Thomas Gisborne’s Walks in a Forest (1794), which describes ‘Monsters marine’.3 Turner had quoted a passage from Walk the First: Spring as an epigraph to his oil painting Dawn of Christianity, exhibited in 1841 (Ulster Museum, Belfast).4
Technical Notes:
There is a rectangular area of discolouration at the centre, probably from exposure during prolonged early National Gallery display. The edges of the leaf are discoloured, particularly at the right, possibly as a result of the Tate Gallery flood of 1928. The leaf is mounted.
David Blayney Brown has noted the ‘technical integrity’ of this drawing: contrary to the majority of the other coastal scenes in the Whalers sketchbook, this one was likely to have been produced by Turner in one session, as opposed to having been returned to and reworked in other media at a later stage.1
Verso:
Blank, save for offsetting in black chalk and an adventitious brushstroke in black watercolour; inscribed in pencil ‘CCCLIII – 21’ bottom centre and in red ink by John Ruskin ‘1160’ bottom left.
Amy Concannon
How to cite
‘Sea Monsters and Vessels at Sunset c.1845’, catalogue entry, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2026, https://www