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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Isle of Wight 1827 > Windsor and Cowes, Isle of Wight ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Sailing Boat and other Vessels, Perhaps in the Solent ?1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Sailing Boat and other Vessels, Perhaps in the Solent’ ?1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Recto:
A Sailing Boat and other Vessels, Perhaps in the Solent ?1827
D20608
Turner Bequest CCXXVI 9
Watercolour on white wove paper, 112 x 192 mm
Partial watermark ‘R Bar | 18’
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVI – 9’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of three pages near the beginning of this sketchbook worked in watercolour alone; see also folios 8 recto and 11 verso (D20607, D41016). It may have been directly observed, a recollection or an idea for a composition, the focus being the dramatic silhouette of the yacht’s sails against the brightest part of the lowering sky. Moored three-masted vessels, probably warships, are brushed in beyond.
Finberg assumed the setting was the Solent,1 between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, and although there is no indication of a coastal setting, the presence of the rowing boat and figures suggests a coastal scene, likely to represent that setting. For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events at Cowes from late July 1827 onwards, see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.695.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Sailing Boat and other Vessels, Perhaps in the Solent ?1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-sailing-boat-and-other-vessels-perhaps-in-the-solent-r1183248, accessed 19 May 2024.