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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Wanderings by the Seine (Rivers of ... > Watercolours for 'Wanderings by the ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Outline of a Sailing Boat; Inscriptions by Turner: Numbering and Subject c.1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Outline of a Sailing Boat; Inscriptions by Turner: Numbering and Subject’ c.1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Outline of a Sailing Boat; Inscriptions by Turner: Numbering and Subject c.1833
D40127
Gouache and pencil on blue paper, 140 x 190 mm
Inscribed by Turner in red gouache ‘15’ top left and ‘St Cloud’ towards top left, and in pencil ‘11’ below the first number
Inscribed in pencil ‘15b’ towards bottom left and ‘CCLIX . 132’ towards bottom centre
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLIX – 132’ at centre, within subject
This is the verso of The Lanterne at St-Cloud, a Wanderings by the Seine subject (D24697; Turner Bequest CCLIX 132). Turner’s gouache inscriptions on the backs of the series are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory.1
The ghostly white outline of a boat or boats under sail has been developed a little with rusty red touches similar in colour to the inscriptions, suggesting that the slight sketch was present before Turner noted the recto’s subject, which does not include such a vessel.

Caroline South
November 2017

1
See A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.796.

How to cite

Caroline South, ‘Outline of a Sailing Boat; Inscriptions by Turner: Numbering and Subject c.1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-outline-of-a-sailing-boat-inscriptions-by-turner-numbering-r1195837, accessed 26 April 2024.