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 > Cowes, the River Medina and Shipping > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sailing Boats ?Moored off a Quay 1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sailing Boats ?Moored off a Quay’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Sailing Boats ?Moored off a Quay 1827
D20870
Turner Bequest CCXXVIII 10
Pencil on blue wove paper, 143 x 199 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Stamped in black ‘CCCCVIII 10’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is among dozens of blue paper studies presumably made in connection with the Cowes Regatta events in the late summer of 1827; see the Introduction to this subsection for other generic harbour and coastal scenes. The drawing here is so provisional that the relationship of the boats and harbour is difficult to discern, with little clue as to the location, which may be Cowes or East Cowes.
As noted in the Introduction, the present work and thirty-four other sheets were recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory as unmounted, and ‘formed part of [a] parcel’ labelled by John Ruskin ‘O. 232. Chalk scrawls on grey. Rubbish.’1
1
Finberg 1909, II, p.702.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘232 | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCXXVIII . 10’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Sailing Boats ?Moored off a Quay 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-sailing-boats-moored-off-a-quay-r1183402, accessed 19 May 2024.