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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Marine subjects c.1803-14 > Nelson Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for 'The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory' 1805

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study for 'The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory'’ 1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Verso:
Study for ‘The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory’ 1805
D41427
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 184 mm, reconstituted
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘26’ bottom left of drawn area
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For Turner’s picture, The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory (Tate N00480),1 exhibited at Turner’s Gallery in 1806; see the Introduction to this sketchbook for the picture and related work. The right section of this leaf has a continuation of a carefully drawn study of the composition on folio 15 (D05481; Turner Bequest LXXXIX 26), for which see full catalogue entry. On the other side (D05490; Turner Bequest LXXXIX 31) is a note by Ruskin instructing that this drawn portion be cut off. He gave it the same folio number as the rest of the subject, intending to amalgamate the two parts and discard the blank area, on which he stated ‘nothing’ was drawn although in fact there are further sketches on the other side. The leaf was cut vertically, but the discarded part survived (though not numbered by Finberg) and was restored when the book was restitched.

David Blayney Brown
March 2006

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.46 no.58 (pl.68).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Study for ‘The Battle of Trafalgar, as Seen from the Mizen Starboard Shrouds of the Victory’ 1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2006, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-study-for-the-battle-of-trafalgar-as-seen-from-the-mizen-r1139260, accessed 03 July 2024.