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 > Calais Pier Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Boats on Shore, with a Distant Ship c.1799-1805

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boats on Shore, with a Distant Ship’ c.1799-1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Verso:
Boats on Shore, with a Distant Ship c.1799–1805
D04925
Turner Bequest LXXXI 24
Black chalk on blue laid paper, 271 x 436 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and ‘VI’
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–24’ top left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made with the page turned horizontally, this design, which seems to emerge from the studies for the watercolour Lake Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake of about 1805 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven;1 see under folio 8 verso; D04917; Turner Bequest LXXXI 16), appears to be connected with the painting of Sun Rising through Vapour; Fishermen Cleaning and Selling Fish, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807 (National Gallery, London).2
Related studies are on folios 13 verso, 17 verso, 20 verso and 29 verso (D04927, D04935, D04941, D04958; Turner Bequest LXXXI 26, 34, 40, 56); see also the Studies for Pictures sketchbook (Tate D04133; Turner Bequest LXIX 116).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.342 no.370, reproduced.
2
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.53–4 no.69, pl.79 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Boats on Shore, with a Distant Ship c.1799–1805 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-boats-on-shore-with-a-distant-ship-r1178129, accessed 25 April 2024.