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 > Boulogne Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Fishing Boats at Harbour ?near Boulogne 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fishing Boats at Harbour ?near Boulogne’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Recto:
Fishing Boats at Harbour ?near Boulogne 1845
D35412
Turner Bequest CCCLVIII 10
Gouache, pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 230 x 326 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘10’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLVIII 10’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner has lightly applied watercolour to a sketch of fishing port to reinforce a sense of compositional depth. The quayside vignette of a standing figure and bobbing sailboats towards the bottom right is brought forward and darkened by two or three layers of ochre while the sky and high horizon line are pushed back with faint stripes of greyish blue. Fishing was important to the economies of Boulogne, Wimereux, and Ambleteuse, although too little information is recorded here to suggest a specific location.1
1
Georges Oustric, ‘Un siècle de croissance économique (1815–1914)’ in Alain Lottin (ed.), Histoire de Boulogne-sur-Mer, Boulogne-sur-Mer 1998, pp.211–46.
Verso:
Blank, except for small patches of watercolour transferred from folio 10 recto opposite (D35413; Turner Bequest CCCLVIII 11).

John Chu
November 2013

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Fishing Boats at Harbour ?near Boulogne 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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-fishing-boats-at-harbour-near-boulogne-r1173513, accessed 25 April 2024.