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 Fishing Boats c.1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fishing Boats’ c.1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Verso:
Fishing Boats c.1802
D05048
Turner Bequest LXXXI 146
Ink and white chalk on blue laid paper, 271 x 436 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and Strasburg lily
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–146’ bottom right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made with the page turned horizontally, these fluent pen sketches of boats sailing before a strong wind may have been drawn direct from the motif, though they are more probably invented as potential elements in one of the marine subjects that Turner was developing in this sketchbook. In fact, the right–hand boat appears, only slightly modified, as the central vessel in the painting Calais Pier, with French Poissards Preparing for Sea: An English Packet Arriving, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803 (National Gallery, London).1
Similar pen drawings of boats appear on folios 73 verso, 75 verso and 76 verso–77 recto (D05046, D05050, D05052–D05053; Turner Bequest LXXXI 144, 148, 150–151).

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.37–8 no.48, pl.58 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Fishing Boats c.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-fishing-boats-r1178252, accessed 18 April 2024.