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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Autumn Tour of Northern France 1845 > Dieppe and Kent Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Steamer at Sea 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Steamer at Sea’ 1845 (Inside front cover of sketchbook)
Inside front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Front Cover:
A Steamer at Sea 1845
D41150
Pencil on white wove paper, 86 x 111 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘B Sky’ top left, ‘[?w]’ top centre and ‘[?Hilly Road]’ towards bottom left
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram
Inscribed by later hands in ink and pencil (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCCLXI’ bottom centre, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXI’ bottom right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the upper half of the page shows a distant steamer silhouetted on the horizon, presumably in the Channel, sending out a high plume of smoke which may be marked ‘w’ for white. The dark pencil forms below to the left appear to show the smoke reflected in shallow water. There is another drawing of a steamer on folio 1 recto opposite (D35487); see the sketchbook’s Introduction for the many slight coastal views scattered through it.
The other way up, overlapping with Turner’s drawing and one of his inscriptions, is the endorsement of the Turner Bequest executors, Henry Scott Trimmer, Charles Turner, Charles Lock Eastlake and John Prescott Knight, in ink ‘No 193/ This book contains 95 leaves | Pencil sketches some on both sides – | H.S. Trimmer | C Turner’ and in pencil ‘C.L.E.’ and ‘JPK’.
Technical notes:
The whole page has darkened, possibly as a result of water damage in the 1928 Tate flood.

Matthew Imms
September 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Steamer at Sea 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-steamer-at-sea-r1183911, accessed 11 May 2024.