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 (2) Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Fishermen Hauling a Boat, with Shipping beyond Breakers c.1801-2

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fishermen Hauling a Boat, with Shipping beyond Breakers’ c.1801-2
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Recto:
Fishermen Hauling a Boat, with Shipping beyond Breakers c.1801–2
D03988
Turner Bequest LXVII 4
Pencil, ink and wash with scraping-out on white wove paper prepared with a grey-blue wash, 118 x 182 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘4’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXVIII 4’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As in other drawings on adjacent pages, Turner adopts a striking low viewpoint, so that the more distant craft are almost hidden by the breaking surf in the foreground. This was a procedure he followed in his picture Fishermen upon a Lee-Shore, in Squally Weather, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802 (Southampton Art Gallery),1 where the scene is witnessed from a beach; and more interestingly in some of the marines of the following years, notably Boats Carrying out Anchors and Cables to Dutch Men of War, in 1665 (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)2 of 1804, where the viewer is apparently half submerged in the heaving ocean.
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).
2
Ibid., pp.40–1 no.52, pl.62 (colour).
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by Ruskin in pen and red ink ‘1166’.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Fishermen Hauling a Boat, with Shipping beyond Breakers 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-fishermen-hauling-a-boat-with-shipping-beyond-breakers-r1178293, accessed 25 April 2024.