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 > Dunbar Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Waves Breaking on the Shore 1801

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Waves Breaking on the Shore’ 1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 116 Recto:
Waves Breaking on the Shore 1801
D02809
Turner Bequest LIV 116
Pencil and wash with scraping-out on white wove paper prepared with a mauve-pink ground, 115 x 164 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘116’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LIV 116’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a continuation of the drawing on folio 115 verso opposite (D02808). It is one of a series of studies of breaking waves between folios 109 recto and 116 verso (D02796–D02810); see also folio 3 verso (D02618).
Like the other studies, this may have been used in the preparation of the canvas Fishermen upon a Lee-Shore, in Squally Weather (Southampton Art Gallery),1 exhibited in 1802. This and the drawing on the verso (D02810) may be the studies singled out for special mention by Finberg in his discussion of this book:
But perhaps the most eloquent pages in the book contain two glorious studies of storm-tossed waves. We are looking out from the shore, with the waves breaking at our feet. Even in his more elaborate work Turner has never suggested the tremendous weight and power of the sea-waves so vividly as in these hurried and tiny sketches. The furious work with the knife on both sides of the paper has reduced it almost to a rag; but the rag is eloquent, and such studies as these help us to understand how it was that Turner could paint the sea so very much better than any artist either before his time or since.2
There are similar studies on folios 109 recto and 110 recto and verso (D02796–D02798), which might merit the same encomium and may have been those Finberg had in mind.
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
Finberg 1910, p.49.
Technical notes:
Folios 109–116 (D02796–D02810) probably belonged originally between folios 33 and 34 (D02649, D02650); see the technical notes to the sketchbook’s Introduction.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Waves Breaking on the Shore 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-waves-breaking-on-the-shore-r1178995, accessed 27 April 2024.