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 > Naples, Paestum and Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of Boats and Figures; and Rain on the Coast, ?in the Bay of Salerno 1819

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of Boats and Figures; and Rain on the Coast, ?in the Bay of Salerno’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 88 Verso:
Studies of Boats and Figures; and Rain on the Coast, ?in the Bay of Salerno 1819
D16080
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 86 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Blue and Stars’, ‘Green’, ‘Green’, ‘White’ ‘Green’, ‘Gren’ and ‘Red’ within boat top left, and ‘[?Gr... ?Manchia]’ top centre, and ‘Red’ and ‘R’ within boat second from top left, and ‘G’ and ‘Green Red Band’ centre. Also ‘Rain’ above sketch, bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner has devoted most of this page to studies of some of the highly coloured and decorated boats which he would have seen in Naples and other parts of southern Italy. The drawings particularly focus on vessels with elaborately carved or moulded prows (front) or sterns (back), and the artist has inscribed his sketches with colour notes. Related studies can be found on folios 60 verso and 74 (D16025 and D16051; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 58a and 72).
Also on this page are three swift figure sketches, drawn in the bottom left-hand corner, parallel with the left-hand edge. Furthermore, in the bottom right-hand corner are a couple of rough landscape views depicting rain clouds above a rocky coastline, probably the Bay of Salerno. A very small part of the composition spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 89 (D15920; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 8).

Nicola Moorby
September 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Studies of Boats and Figures; and Rain on the Coast, ?in the Bay of Salerno 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2010, 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-studies-of-boats-and-figures-and-rain-on-the-coast-in-the-r1138004, accessed 19 September 2024.