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 Study for 'Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board ("The Bridgewater Seapiece")' c.1799-1801

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study for 'Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board ("The Bridgewater Seapiece")'’ c.1799-1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 55 Verso:
Study for ‘Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board (“The Bridgewater Seapiece”)’ c.1799–1801
D05010
Turner Bequest LXXXI 108
Ink and wash on blue laid paper, 436 x 271 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and Strasburg lily
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘Dukes’ centre right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–108’ top right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the subject is continued on folio 56 recto opposite (D05011; Turner Bequest LXXXI 109). See also folios 54 verso–55 recto (D05008–D05009; Turner Bequest LXXXI 106–107), which Turner inscribed as the ‘last study’ for the Duke of Bridgewater’s painting Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board (‘The Bridgewater Seapiece’), exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1801 (private collection, on loan to the National Gallery, London).1
Although that ‘last study’ is the grandest of the sequence of studies listed under D05008, the final position in the design of the main group of boats is indicated most clearly here. The man–o’–war, however, is replaced by a smaller vessel, another fishing–boat, much closer to the viewer.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.12–13 no.14, pl.11 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Study for ‘Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board (“The Bridgewater Seapiece”)’ c.1799–1801 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-study-for-dutch-boats-in-a-gale-fishermen-endeavouring-to-r1178214, accessed 19 April 2024.