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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Scotland 1801-10 > Chester Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Fishermen Launching a Boat 1801

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fishermen Launching a Boat’ 1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 75 Verso:
Fishermen Launching a Boat 1801
D05155
Turner Bequest 75a
Pencil and ink on white wove paper, 161 x 256 mm
Blind–stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Stamped in black ‘LXXXII – 75a’ bottom right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The study was made with the page turned horizontally. The pencil drawing in the background, of a fishing boat seen in steep foreshortening, relates the page clearly to the painting Fishermen upon a Lee–Shore, in Squally Weather, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802 (Southampton Art Gallery), though Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll do not list it in their entry for that work.1 One of the figures has been rubbed out by Turner.
This is one of four drawings connected with the painting in this sketchbook; see also folios 76 recto opposite, 77 verso and the inside of the back cover (D05156–D05158; Turner Bequest 76, 76a, 77).

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, ‘Fishermen Launching a Boat 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-fishermen-launching-a-boat-r1178724, accessed 14 May 2024.