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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of Boats under Sail on the Beneden Merwede, Oude Maas (Old Meuse) or Noord Rivers off Dordrecht, with the Grote Kerk in the Distance 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of Boats under Sail on the Beneden Merwede, Oude Maas (Old Meuse) or Noord Rivers off Dordrecht, with the Grote Kerk in the Distance’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 47 Verso:
Studies of Boats under Sail on the Beneden Merwede, Oude Maas (Old Meuse) or Noord Rivers off Dordrecht, with the Grote Kerk in the Distance 1825
D18932
Turner Bequest CCXIV 47a
Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Reeds’ at centre, ‘Blu’ (sic) and ‘[?Green]’ below left of centre, and ‘Sometimes the [?Light ...] | [?is seen over] on the left [?side]’ below right of centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Working in six bands down the page, Turner made sketches of boats under sail, with swift suggestions of clouds in the sky and diagonal strokes that suggest rain, albeit in conjunction with a small disk to indicate the low morning sun. There are also notes including colours and a scrawled description of light effects. See this sketchbook’s Introduction for discussion of its many shipping studies.
The setting is not, as Finberg thought, Rotterdam1 (see under folio 35 recto; D18908), but Dordrecht, with the northern side of the prominent Grote Kerk shown repeatedly. Turner drew these views from around the point where the Beneden Merwede river forks into its distributaries, the Noord and Oude Maas (Old Meuse),2 making it uncertain which of the three was his viewpoint in each case. See under the recto (D18931) for other views in and around the city in this book and elsewhere, many of which feature the Grote Kerk.

Matthew Imms and Quirine van der Meer Mohr
September 2020

1
See Finberg 1909, II, p.652.
2
See Bachrach 1974, p.52.

How to cite

Matthew Imms and Quirine van der Meer Mohr, ‘Studies of Boats under Sail on the Beneden Merwede, Oude Maas (Old Meuse) or Noord Rivers off Dordrecht, with the Grote Kerk in the Distance 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-studies-of-boats-under-sail-on-the-beneden-merwede-oude-maas-r1202284, accessed 29 April 2025.