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 > On a Lee Shore (1) Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Fishing Boat and Crew among Breakers, with Another Boat Farther out to Sea c.1801-2

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Fishing Boat and Crew among Breakers, with Another Boat Farther out to Sea’ c.1801-2
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
A Fishing Boat and Crew among Breakers, with Another Boat Farther out to Sea c.1801–2
D03978
Turner Bequest LXVII 5
Pencil and ink on white wove paper prepared with a grey-blue wash, 118 x 182 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘5’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXVII 5’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here the central motif of Turner’s painting Fishermen upon a Lee-Shore, in Squally Weather, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802 (Southampton Art Gallery),1 is studied in some detail. The potential danger of the situation is already apparent from the presence of a man in the water under the boat’s gunwale; the drama is heightened in the drawing on the following pages. Compare several drawings in the contemporary Calais Pier sketchbook (Tate D04986– D04987; Turner Bequest LXXXI 84–85).

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.15–16 no.16, pl.12 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Fishing Boat and Crew among Breakers, with Another Boat Farther out to Sea c.1801–2 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-boat-and-crew-among-breakers-with-another-boat-r1178282, accessed 19 April 2024.