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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Folkestone and the Medway c.1821-2 > Medway Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Ship of the Line in Profile c.1821

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Ship of the Line in Profile’ c.1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Recto:
A Ship of the Line in Profile c.1821
D17433
Turner Bequest CXCIX 41
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 190 mm
Partial watermark ‘nard | 20’
Stamped in black ‘CXCIX – 41’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made with the page inverted according to the foliation of the sketchbook, these two drawings lightly connect at centre to show a ship of the line in profile.1 The composition continues onto the facing sheet, folio 40 verso (D17432), where Turner describes the bow of the vessel. He observes the ship docked at port. This is indicated most obviously by a stack of short horizontal dashes which connect the harbour with the deck and supply a route for crew between the two. Small sections of taut rigging are indicated towards both stern and bow, and gun ports elaborate the hull at intervals.
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.608.
Technical notes:
A small, brown, circular stain marks this page slightly above its centre.

Maud Whatley
January 2016

How to cite

Maud Whatley, ‘A Ship of the Line in Profile c.1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-ship-of-the-line-in-profile-r1184710, accessed 27 April 2024.