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

This sketch shows the departure of King George IV from his yacht, the Royal George, in the royal barge at Leith Roads on 15 August 1822, and has been related by Gerald Finley to composition ‘2’ of a series of nineteen composition studies at the back of this sketchbook which he proposes form a plan for a ‘Royal Progress’ of paintings.1 That design, and therefore, as Butlin and Joll point out, this page, are studies for the unfinished oil painting, The King’s Departure from the ‘Royal George’ in the Royal Barge, circa 1823 (Tate N02880).2 The Royal George is shown at the right of the picture, its decks crowded with figures, and its hull looming above the viewer, whose perspective is from a much smaller vessel closer to the water. A number of vessels float around the yacht’s starboard side in rather choppy water; at their centre is the royal barge which conveyed the King to the harbour at Leith.

The drawing was probably developed from sketches rather than drawn from life as there are no Scottish subjects drawn from the motif in this sketchbook. It was therefore based on composition ‘2’ with reference to sketches of the event in the King’s Visit to Edinburgh sketchbook. There are four or perhaps six sketches of the event (see Tate D17517; Turner Bequest CC 5a). The barge in this design, however, is probably based on a drawing lent to Turner by John Christian Schetky (see George IV’s Visit to Edinburgh 1822 Tour Introduction).3

D.S. MacColl has also related the oil painting to a watercolour study (Tate D25508; CCLXIII–384),4 but as Butlin and Joll have stated, ‘it is not particularly close’,5 and it seems to bear no relationship to this sketch or any other studies of the Royal George (a yacht, rather than a hulk as in the watercolour) or other shipping seen by Turner at Leith Roads in 1822.

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