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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth 1844 > Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Warship Firing a Salute for the Arrival of Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth 1844

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Warship Firing a Salute for the Arrival of Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth’ 1844
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Verso:
A Warship Firing a Salute for the Arrival of Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth 1844
D35700
Turner Bequest CCCLXII 9
Pencil on white wove paper, 74 x 116 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the billowing forms towards the left seem to represent the smoke from a salute obscuring all but the upper masts and yards of a warship, while the slight forms on the right may indicate part of another vessel. Like the other rapid sketches in this book, this relates to the arrival of Louis-Philippe, King of the French, at Portsmouth Harbour on 8 October 1844, as discussed in the Introductions to the sketchbook and the overall section.
Compare the watercolour of the occasion by William and John Cantiloe Joy (Tate T12425), and the painting The Arrival of His Majesty the King of the French (Southampton City Art Gallery) by John Christian Schetky (1778–1874), where HMS Victory is saluting in the distance.1 The Victory appears on folio 36 recto (D35753).
The blank recto is inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘9’ and stamped in black ‘CCCLXII – 9’ at the bottom right. For numerous instances of blank, unaccessioned rectos in this sketchbook, see the technical notes in the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
September 2016

1
See Schetky’s description in the 1845 Royal Academy exhibition catalogue, quoted in Ian Warrell, ‘“I saw Louis Philippe land at Portsmouth”: Fixing Turner’s Presence at the Arrival of the King of the French, 8 October 1844’, Turner Society News, no.120, Autumn 2013, p.11, caption to fig.3.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Warship Firing a Salute for the Arrival of Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth 1844 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, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-warship-firing-a-salute-for-the-arrival-of-louis-philippe-r1185648, accessed 25 April 2024.