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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Studies for Pictures Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Shipping on a Calm Sea c.1799-1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Shipping on a Calm Sea’ c.1799-1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 115 Recto:
Shipping on a Calm Sea c.1799–1802
D04133
Turner Bequest LXIX 116
Ink and pencil on blue laid paper, 135 x 210 mm
Watermark: Strasburg lily (trimmed)
Inscribed in pencil by ?a collaborator ‘X’ top left, ‘Evening – Sunset ––’ top centre, ‘Ships – Line of battle – 2d Ship at a greater distance | fm ye first –’ towards top in sky, ‘Low Land | very distant’ centre right above horizon, ‘Wet Sand’ bottom centre, ‘fish’ towards bottom right, and ‘figures’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘116’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘LXIX-116’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The pencil additions and suggestions in the foreground, apparently by another hand (the shore, quay and figures), seem to anticipate the composition of the 1807 painting Sun Rising through Vapour; Fishermen Cleaning and Selling Fish (National Gallery, London).1 They transform the horizontal composition by the introduction of a dock or jetty at the right, a device that Turner adopted for that painting and for his two watercolour views of Scarborough, of 1809 (Wallace Collection, London)2 and 1811 (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide).3.
The writing may perhaps be Turner’s, but the additions to the drawing in pencil do not look at all like his hand, especially the odd stunted tree-forms that apparently stand for human figures. There seems to be no reason why Turner, if he added these alterations himself, should not have made them in ink. For another intervention in a different hand see the 1801 Helmsley sketchbook (Tate D02466; Turner Bequest LIII 3a).
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.53–4 no.69, pl.79 (colour).
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.360 no.527, reproduced.
3
Ibid., no.528, pl.122 (colour).
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil in the same hand as that on the verso of folio 114 (D04132; Turner Bequest LXIX 115) ‘142’ and by John Ruskin in red ink ‘1068’.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Shipping on a Calm Sea c.1799–1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-shipping-on-a-calm-sea-r1178013, accessed 25 April 2024.