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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > French Tour 1821 > Paris, Seine and Dieppe Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two-Masted Sailing Vessel 1821

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two-Masted Sailing Vessel’ 1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Recto:
Two-Masted Sailing Vessel 1821
D18542
Turner Bequest CCXI 11
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Black | [?]White Deck | C[...]er’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCXI – 11’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of four pages of sketches in the present book of a two-masted vessel with an eagle figurehead docked at Greenwich (see Tate D18539; Turner Bequest CCXI 9a). The present sketch, made from the starboard side, pays particular attention to the rigging, and the artist has noted the colour of the hull (‘Black’) and of the ‘White Deck’. Turner’s approach to recording these details is very reminiscent of a sketch he made of George IV’s yacht, the Royal George, when it was moored in Leith harbour in August 1822 (Tate D17514; Turner Bequest CC 4), suggesting that these studies may also be connected with George IV’s visit to Scotland.1
Another sketch brings us closer into the bow of the vessel where the figurehead is recorded in more detail (Tate D18543; Turner Bequest CCXI 12).

Thomas Ardill
February 2013

1
Warrell 1999, pp.24, 253 note 42.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Two-Masted Sailing Vessel 1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-two-masted-sailing-vessel-r1146238, accessed 21 November 2024.