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

This rough watercolour vignette is one of a group of more than thirty watercolour sketches in the Turner Bequest which have been identified as preliminary studies for Campbell’s Poetical Works, published by Edward Moxon in 1837. The motif of a solitary ship amidst a stormy sea suggests that it may be a preliminary design for The Andes Coast circa 1835 (National Gallery of Scotland), which Turner designed to accompany part of Thomas Campbell’s poem, ‘The Pleasures of Hope’.1 The illustration was engraved by Edward Goodall and published in Edward Moxon’s 1837 edition of Campbell’s Poetical Works.2 For a general discussion of sketches related to The Andes Coast, see Tate D27524; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 7.

All of the studies related to Campbell’s Poetical Works are painted on cheap, lightweight paper and executed in a rough, loose style. This work was part of a parcel of studies described by John Ruskin as ‘A.B. 40. PO. Vignette beginnings, once on a roll. Worthless’.3 For an explanation of his meaning of ‘once on a roll’ see the technical notes above. Finberg records how Ruskin later described his phrasing in a letter to Ralph Nicholson Wornum as ‘horrible’, adding ‘I never meant it to be permanent’.4

Technical notes:
Peter Bower has noted that this study is made on off-white low-grade machine-made cartridge paper. The maker is unknown and there is no watermark. This paper would have been relatively cheap to buy and could have been purchased from a colourman, cut off from a roll to the desired size. Turner has used the ‘felt’ side of the paper which has slightly more texture than the ‘wire’ side, allowing better adhesion of pigment and graphite to the surface of the sheet. Many of Turner’s vignette studies were made on a similar grade of machine-made paper, and the artist employed the ‘felt’ side on all of them.1

Verso:
Inscribed by an unknown hand in pencil ‘AB 40 P | O’ bottom right