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 A Boat Riding a Wave, with a Figure on the Beach c.1799-1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Boat Riding a Wave, with a Figure on the Beach’ c.1799-1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 49 Verso:
A Boat Riding a Wave, with a Figure on the Beach c.1799–1802
D04998
Turner Bequest LXXXI 96
Ink on blue laid paper, 436 x 271 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and ‘VI’
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘Lee shore’ centre left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–96’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject is continued on folio 50 recto opposite (D04999; Turner Bequest LXXXI 97). It is a preliminary study for the painting Fishermen upon a Lee–Shore, in Squally Weather, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802 (Southampton Art Gallery).1 The boat that is the main feature of this design remains the principal element but becomes subsidiary in another marine subject, which Turner rehearses in various guises on these pages (see folios 44 verso–45 recto and 50 verso–51 recto; D04988–D04989, D05000–D05001; Turner Bequest LXXXI 86–87, 98–99). He evidently intended it to be another scene from the life of fishermen on a lee shore, but it had been transformed by the time it appeared at his own gallery in 1807, into Sheerness and the Isle of Sheppey, with the Junction of the Thames and the Medway from the Nore (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC).2

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.15–16 no.16, pl.12 (colour).
2
Ibid., pp.49–50 no.62, pl.73.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Boat Riding a Wave, with a Figure on the Beach 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-a-boat-riding-a-wave-with-a-figure-on-the-beach-r1178202, accessed 26 April 2024.