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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Margate, London and Surrey c.1829-45 > Marine Dabblers Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?A Child with a Toy Boat among Other Figures on a Seashore, Perhaps at Margate c.1829-30

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Child with a Toy Boat among Other Figures on a Seashore, Perhaps at Margate’ c.1829-30
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 46 Verso:
?A Child with a Toy Boat among Other Figures on a Seashore, Perhaps at Margate c.1829–30
D22514
Turner Bequest CCXLI 46a
Pencil on gilt-edged blue wove paper, 89 x 113 mm
Inscribed by Turner ‘Marine Dabbler’ towards top left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the upper third comprises a view of a beach with figures, with breakers out to sea on the left and masts in the distance. Various silhouetted forms on the right appear to be figures, including one seen from the back wearing a hat, a smaller figure crouching or sitting beside a small upright form which might be the sail of a toy boat; the jumble of marks towards the right may be more figures. That a toy boat and a child may be the focus is suggested by Turner’s inscription, which probably is ‘Marine Dabbler’, as Finberg transcribed it.1
This would be a recollection of the Marine Dabblers design Turner made of boys playing with toy boats (and distressingly losing one of them) for his Liber Studiorum series of landscape prints.2 For further discussion of the theme and its metaphorical implications,3 see the entry for the Liber watercolour study of about 1808 (Tate D08133; Turner Bequest CXVII F), which was engraved in 1811 (Tate impression: A00969). The present incident was perhaps observed at or near Margate, the subject of other drawings in this sketchbook; see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
May 2014

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.741.
2
See Wilton 1974, p.125, Wilkinson 1975, p.50, and Bailey 1997, p.279.
3
See also Chumbley and Warrell 1989, p.42, and Forrester 1996, p.80.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Child with a Toy Boat among Other Figures on a Seashore, Perhaps at Margate c.1829–30 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-child-with-a-toy-boat-among-other-figures-on-a-seashore-r1148406, accessed 20 April 2024.