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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Shipping off Ostend 1840

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Shipping off Ostend’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Verso:
?Shipping off Ostend 1840
D30473
Turner Bequest CCCIII 7a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark (countermark): indecipherable maker’s name
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This very slight horizontal sketch likely shows shipping moored at Ostend, depicted on numerous adjacent pages at the end of Turner’s 1840 tour; see under folio 1 recto (D30460).1 The vertical form towards the left may be furled sails or possibly the lighthouse shown in detail elsewhere, while the dots or dashes to its right perhaps indicate bunting, as seen in the rigging in several rapid studies in the 1844 Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth sketchbook, such as Tate D35743 (Turner Bequest CCCLXII 31).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See also Powell 1995, p.246.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?Shipping off Ostend 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-shipping-off-ostend-r1196233, accessed 20 April 2024.