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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Brighton and Copies from Wilson 1796-7 > Wilson Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Sailing Ship Foundering in Heavy Seas, Seen from Above 1796-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Sailing Ship Foundering in Heavy Seas, Seen from Above’ 1796-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 43 Verso:
A Sailing Ship Foundering in Heavy Seas, Seen from Above 1796–7
D01205
Turner Bequest XXXVII 88
Pencil, grey wash and white chalk on blue laid wrapping paper prepared with a red-brown wash, 113 x 93 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXXVII – 88’ top right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the composition continues across folio 44 recto opposite (D01206; Turner Bequest XXXVII 89). This study anticipates several of the stormy marines that Turner was to produce in the first decade of the new century, notably Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board (‘The Bridgewater Seapiece’) of 1801 (private collection),1 and the watercolour of the Loss of an East Indiaman of about 1818 (formerly ‘Loss of a Man of War’; The Higgins Bedford).2

Andrew Wilton
September 2012

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.12–13 no.14, pl.11 (colour).
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.357 no.500.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Sailing Ship Foundering in Heavy Seas, Seen from Above 1796–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-sailing-ship-foundering-in-heavy-seas-seen-from-above-r1149895, accessed 24 April 2024.