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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Fishing Vessel ?in a Storm; Trees on the Bank of a River or Lake c.1799-1805

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 66 Verso:
A Fishing Vessel ?in a Storm; Trees on the Bank of a River or Lake c.1799–1805
D05032
Turner Bequest LXXXI 130
Wash and black and white chalks on blue laid paper, 436 x 271 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and Strasburg lily
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–130’ top right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the study of a fishing boat is continued on folio 67 recto opposite (D05033; Turner Bequest LXXXI 131). It is presumably connected with the 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 see under folio 54 verso (D05008; Turner Bequest LXXXI 106).
The trees that appear rather unexpectedly on this page must relate to another project, presumably either the unexhibited painting Venus and Adonis (‘Adonis Departing for the Chase’) of about 1803–4 (private collection)2 or the unrealised ‘Death of Adonis’; see folios 26 verso and 27 verso (D04952, D04954; Turner Bequest LXXXI 50, 52).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.12–13 no.14, pl.11 (colour).
2
Ibid., pp.113–15 no.150, pl.49 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Fishing Vessel ?in a Storm; Trees on the Bank of a River or Lake 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-a-fishing-vessel-in-a-storm-trees-on-the-bank-of-a-river-or-r1178236, accessed 28 March 2024.