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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales and the Marches 1792-4 > Drawings and Watercolours Connected with ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Sailing Ship on a River between Rocky Cliffs ?1792-3

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Sailing Ship on a River between Rocky Cliffs’ ?1792-3
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Sailing Ship on a River between Rocky Cliffs ?1792–3
D00390
Turner Bequest XXIII P
Pencil and watercolour on thin white card, 215 x 248 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘XXIII.P’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXIII P’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is perhaps a view in the Avon Gorge (compare the drawing in the Bristol and Malmesbury sketchbook, Tate D00107; Turner Bequest VI 24); but it is not compatible stylistically with the drawings made at Bristol in 1791. It is more probably a view on the River Wye, perhaps near Symonds Yat, deriving from the 1792 tour. Another study of what is probably the same boat is on the verso of this sheet (D40242).
There are blue and ochre colour trials in the lower left corner.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Sailing Ship on a River between Rocky Cliffs ?1792–3 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-sailing-ship-on-a-river-between-rocky-cliffs-r1141138, accessed 19 April 2024.