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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Hints River Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Calm Marine; Barges on a River c.1815-18

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Calm Marine; Barges on a River’ c.1815-18
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Recto:
A Calm Marine; Barges on a River circa 1815–18
D10592
Turner Bequest CXLI 4
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘4’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXLI 4’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
One of several calm river scenes in this sketchbook, probably all on the River Thames, this might also have some relationship in general terms to Dort, or Dordrecht, the Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut)1 which Turner based on his trip to Holland in 1817. Although there is no evidence that he took this sketchbook with him, he mentions the picture in a list of works on folio 35 verso (D10646). For another sketch in the same idiom but apparently including Greenwich Hospital see folio 7 (D10595), and for further comment, notes to folio 3 verso (D10591).
1
Ibid., pp.91–3 no.137 (pl.122).
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘A Calm Marine; Barges on a River c.1815–18 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, 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-a-calm-marine-barges-on-a-river-r1131645, accessed 26 April 2024.