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

At the uppermost register is a view of fishing boats sailing off the coast with a harbour beyond. The profile of the distant harbour resembles Calais, with the lighthouse (the Tour de Guet) and tower of the Hotel de Ville at centre. Turner has inscribed ‘sand’ on a spit close to the fishing vessels.

With the sketchbook orientated to landscape, Turner records what appears to be some fishing or harbour machinery and a separate jotting of a group of ‘fisherwomen digging for [bait or crabs]’. The women most probably search for crustacea such as sand crabs traditionally used to bait fish. Turner scholars Evelyn Joll and Martin Butlin write that the fisherwomen in this diminutive sketch are similar to those depicted in the oil painting Calais Sands, Low Water, Poissards Collecting Bait, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1830.1 See also Tate D24880; Turner Bequest CCLX 44: a watercolour and gouache drawings of ‘fishers getting bait’.