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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Spring Tour of Northern France 1845 > Ambleteuse and Wimereux Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dark Clouds over the Sea ?near Boulogne 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dark Clouds over the Sea ?near Boulogne’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Dark Clouds over the Sea ?near Boulogne 1845
D35399
Turner Bequest CCCLVII 12
Watercolour on paper white wove, 238 x 336 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘12’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLVII 12’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In this watercolour sketch, accomplished without underlying pencil drawing, a dark sea and threatening clouds are divided by a central belt of ‘reserved’ paper to represent clearer skies in the distance. To the left, the dark shape on the crest of a wave resembles the hulk of a small fishing vessel. Robert K. Wallace speculates that this form may document a whale sighting and connects it to Turner’s current interest in whaling imagery, as discussed under the entry for D35391 (Turner Bequest CCCLVII 6).1
1
Wallace 1992, p.538.
Verso:
Blank; the sheet was not available for inspection out of its frame at the time of cataloguing.

John Chu
December 2013

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Dark Clouds over the Sea ?near Boulogne 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-dark-clouds-over-the-sea-near-boulogne-r1173498, accessed 25 April 2024.