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

With the page turned vertically, Turner has made a rapid study of figures, apparently a woman in a bonnet and possibly children seen from the back. The circumstances are unclear, unless the radiating lines below represent the deck or hull framework of a boat, although other features there suggest a separate landscape sketch. The significance of the square tower at the top right is also uncertain, as is the reading of the scrawled works above, which perhaps indicate a place name.

There are other groups of figures on folio 15 recto opposite (D35785), and across folios 28 verso–29 recto (D35807–D35808; Turner Bequest CCCLXIII 27v–28); Finberg though the latter were passengers ‘on board a packet’.1