Joseph Mallord William Turner A Mountainous Coast with a Stranded Vessel or Whale, Possibly at Penmaenmawr or in North-East England c.1825-38
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
A Mountainous Coast with a Stranded Vessel or Whale, Possibly at Penmaenmawr or in North-East England
c.1825-38
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Mountainous Coast with a Stranded Vessel or Whale, Possibly at Penmaenmawr or in North-East England c.1825–38
D25154
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 32
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 32
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 371 x 551 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Stranded Vessel]’ and ‘Willow paper’ bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘32’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 32’ bottom right
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Stranded Vessel]’ and ‘Willow paper’ bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘32’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 32’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1869
Second Loan Collection selected from the Turner Bequest, various venues and dates, 1869–1931 (no catalogue but numbered 32, as ‘Harbour Scene’).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (52, as ‘A storm over a rocky coast’, ?c.1817).
1978
Turner 1775–1851, Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, December 1978–February 1979 (45, reproduced, as ‘A storm over a rocky coast’, ?c.1817).
1979
Exposicion del gran pintor ingles, William Turner: Oleos y acuarelas: Collecciones de la Tate Gallery, British Museum y otros museos ingleses, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, August–September 1979 (BM43, as ‘Tormenta en una costa rocosa’, ?c.1817).
1979
Oleos y acuarelas de Joseph Mallord William Turner, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela, October[–?November] 1979 (BM 43, as ‘Tormenta en una costa rocosa’, ?c.1817).
1980
Turner and the Sublime, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, November 1980–January 1981, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, February–April 1981, British Museum, London, May–September 1981 (60, reproduced, as ‘Storm over a rocky Coast’, c.1815–20).
1982
Turner and the Sea: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Loaned by the British Museum, Tate Gallery, London, January–June 1982 (no catalogue, as ‘Stranded Vessel’).
2007
Hockney on Turner Watercolours, Tate Britain, London, June 2007–February 2008 (not in catalogue, as ‘The Stranded Vessel’).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.816, CCLXIII 32 (as ‘The stranded vessel’. c.1820–30).
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, p.50 under no.51, p.50 no.52 (as ‘A storm over a rocky coast’. ?c.1817).
1980
Andrew Wilton, Turner and the Sublime, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto 1980, pp.147–9 no.60, reproduced.
1990
Peter Bower, Turner’s Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1787–1820, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990, p.125 and note 5.
1990
Diane Perkins, The Third Decade: Turner Watercolours 1810–1820, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990, p.33 under no.27.
1991
Ian Warrell, ‘R.N. Wornum and the First Three Loan Collections: A History of the Early Display of the Turner Bequest Outside London’, in Turner Studies, vol.11, no.1, Summer 1991, p.43 no.32, as Harbour Scene (Colour), noting Finberg’s later title.
1997
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.27, 31, 95, 99, 100, 104: (p.95 Appendix I under ‘England and Wales Series’, as ‘?Study for the background of Penmaen-Mawr, Caernarvonshire’. c.1832), (p.99 under ‘Literary and Book Illustrations’, as ‘Possible study for The Whale on Shore’. c.1837), (p.100 under ‘Paper Test-Sheets?’), (p.104 Appendix II, as ‘Study: Penmaen-Mawr, Caernarvonshire/The Whale on Shore/paper test-sheet’).
Andrew Wilton suggests that the two pencil circles below the cliffs in this colour study might indicate the position of Turner’s ‘stranded vessel’, speculating that the scene may recall Land’s End (see the 1811 Cornwall and Devon sketchbook; Tate; Turner Bequest CXXV a), or possibly the coast of Durham or Northumberland, visited in 1817 (see the relevant section of the present catalogue) given that this composition was once attached to a Durham view,1 as described in the technical notes. There is a slight pencil outline on the horizon, apparently representing a further range of cliffs with a tower on the skyline, with some criss-cross pencil marks to the left which may indicate further landscape features or shipping.
Eric Shanes has suggested that this is a study for the mountainous North Wales background of the watercolour Penmaen-Mawr, Caernarvonshire of about 1832 (British Museum, London),2 engraved in 1832 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T04601, T06107);3 the similarity appears rather generic, with both showing a precipitous coast on the right in stormy conditions, and there is no sign here of the curving coastal road and bank of earth in the foreground of the finished watercolour. The 1799 drawing in the Dolbadarn sketchbook (Tate D02130; Turner Bequest XLVI 90a) on which the latter appears to be based is itself slight, and it is possible that the present work was an intermediate step in developing the Penmaenmawr subject so many years after Turner’s visit.
Shanes also offers an alternative reading of Turner’s inscription as ‘stranded whale’, linking it potentially to the watercolour The Whale on Shore of about 1837 (Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati, Ohio),4 a work in imaginative, illustrative mode but not linked to a particular publishing project.5 Again, the connection is in terms of a rocky, stormy coast beyond a bay, populated in this design by dozens of small figures, dwarfed by the thrashing whale’s tail rearing up against the rocks in the middle distance in the equivalent space occupied by the two pencil circles in the present work.
The identification of the subject of this study, assuming Turner intended one, is likely to remain unresolved. Wilton’s dating of c.1817 seems early for such a broad ‘colour beginning’, and so a date of about 1825 to 1838 is suggested here in view of the other possibilities outlined above and the broadest timescale of Turner’s involvement with the England and Wales project. See also the Introductions to the present subsection of tentatively identified but unrealised subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower notes this as a torn half of a lightweight machine-made sheet, of ‘small Imperial’ format (29 x 21¾ inches, or 763 x 552 mm); the other half is Durham Cathedral with a Rainbow (Tate D25247; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 125) with colour tests below. Both halves are inscribed ‘Willow paper’, but Bower has been unable to establish the phrase’s meaning. There is no known manufacturer named Willow, nor is there any willow in the sheet’s bleached cotton and linen content, although willow bark had previously been used experimentally in papermaking.1 Andrew Wilton has described it as ‘rather inferior in quality to the Whatman paper [Turner] customarily used, though with a smooth, hard texture.’2
Peter Bower notes this as a torn half of a lightweight machine-made sheet, of ‘small Imperial’ format (29 x 21¾ inches, or 763 x 552 mm); the other half is Durham Cathedral with a Rainbow (Tate D25247; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 125) with colour tests below. Both halves are inscribed ‘Willow paper’, but Bower has been unable to establish the phrase’s meaning. There is no known manufacturer named Willow, nor is there any willow in the sheet’s bleached cotton and linen content, although willow bark had previously been used experimentally in papermaking.1 Andrew Wilton has described it as ‘rather inferior in quality to the Whatman paper [Turner] customarily used, though with a smooth, hard texture.’2
The conspicuous strip left partly bare and otherwise worked in watercolour along the bottom of the present composition is actually part of the landscape and sky of the Durham view, which would have been at right-angles when the sheet was intact, and the diagonal stroke towards the left matches up with one of the colour test strokes on the other half.
There are brown blobs and streaks of colour, or adventitious staining, over the grey clouds at the top left and centre.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘10’ towards bottom right, upside down; inscribed in pencil ‘AB [?260] P’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘32’ bottom right, descending vertically; stamped in black with Turner monogram above ‘CCLXIII – 32’ bottom left.
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘10’ towards bottom right, upside down; inscribed in pencil ‘AB [?260] P’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘32’ bottom right, descending vertically; stamped in black with Turner monogram above ‘CCLXIII – 32’ bottom left.
The ‘AB’ number corresponds with the endorsement on one of the parcels of works sorted by John Ruskin during his survey of the Turner Bequest, in this case classified by him as ‘Colour on white. Larger and later’.1
Matthew Imms
March 2013
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘A Mountainous Coast with a Stranded Vessel or Whale, Possibly at Penmaenmawr or in North-East England c.1825–38 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www