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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Isle of Wight 1827 > Cowes, the River Medina and Shipping > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Boats Rolling under Full Sail with Moored Shipping, Perhaps off Cowes or East Cowes 1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boats Rolling under Full Sail with Moored Shipping, Perhaps off Cowes or East Cowes’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Boats Rolling under Full Sail with Moored Shipping, Perhaps off Cowes or East Cowes 1827
D20891
Turner Bequest CCXXVIII 31
Gouache and pencil on blue wove paper, 139 x 192 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCCCVIII 31’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is among dozens of blue paper studies presumably made in connection with the Cowes Regatta events in the late summer of 1827; see the Introduction to this subsection for others showing shipping under sail and in some cases apparently racing. Whether intentionally or fortuitously, the dramatic rolling of the boats, seen from astern, is reminiscent of the central incident in the painting Fishing Boats Entering Calais Harbour of about 1803 (Frick Collection, New York),1 engraved in 1816 for the Liber Studiorum (Tate impression: A01116).
As noted in the Introduction, the present work and thirty-four other sheets were recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory as unmounted, and ‘formed part of [a] parcel’ labelled by John Ruskin ‘O. 232. Chalk scrawls on grey. Rubbish.’2
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.108 no.142, pl.147 (colour).
2
Finberg 1909, II, p.702.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘232 | O’ top left, upside down; inscribed in pencil ‘CCXXVIII . 31’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Boats Rolling under Full Sail with Moored Shipping, Perhaps off Cowes or East Cowes 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-boats-rolling-under-full-sail-with-moored-shipping-perhaps-r1183424, accessed 25 April 2024.