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 62 Verso:
Study for ‘Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board (“The Bridgewater Seapiece”)’ c.1799–1801

D05024
Turner Bequest LXXXI 122
Ink, wash with white chalk on blue laid paper, 436 x 271 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and Strasburg lily
Inscribed by Turner ‘Do’ centre right, ascending vertically
Inscribed in ink ‘122’ top right, upside down
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–122’ top right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this drawing continues on folio 63 recto opposite (D05025; Turner Bequest LXXXI 123). Turner’s ‘Do’ (for ‘ditto’) refers to the inscription ‘Study for the Duke of Bridgewater’s Picture’ on folio 64 verso (D05028; Turner Bequest LXXXI 126).
This is one of the most developed of the sequence of studies for the picture of Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to Put their Fish on Board (‘The Bridgewater Seapiece’; private collection, on loan to the National Gallery, London),1 that Turner painted for the Duke of Bridgewater and showed at the Royal Academy in 1801. Here, as A.G.H. Bachrach points out, the incipient collision between the two foreground boats is clearly depicted.2 For related drawings in this sketchbook, see under folio 54 verso (D05008; Turner Bequest LXXXI 106).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.12–13 no.14, pl.11 (colour).
2
See A.G.H. Bachrach, ‘Turner’s Holland’, Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo–American Letters, vol.6, 1976, p.98 onwards.

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-r1178228, accessed 19 September 2024.