Joseph Mallord William Turner Brighton Beach with Bathing Machines c.1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Brighton Beach with Bathing Machines c.1830
D25133
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 11
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 11
Gouache and watercolour on white wove paper, 364 x 514 mm
Watermark ‘Ruse & Turners | 1828’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 11’ bottom right
Watermark ‘Ruse & Turners | 1828’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 11’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1933
Four Screens, British Museum, London, June 1933–July 1934 (no catalogue but frame number 7, as ‘On the Sands’).
1937
Aquarelles de Turner, oeuvres de Blake/Englischen Graphiken und Aquarellen: W. Blake und J.M.W. Turner, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, January–February 1937, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, March–April 1937 (100, as ‘Blick aus einer Bucht’, c.1828–30).
1947
Turner 1775–1851: Tentoonstelling in het Stedelijk Museum te Amsterdam georganiseerd door de Tate Gallery voor de British Council, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1947 (60, as ‘Het strand te Brighton’).
1947
William Turner 1775–1851: Die Ausstellung wurde von der Tate Gallery für den British Council organisiert, Berner Kunstmuseum, Bern, December 1947–February 1948 (60, as ‘Der Strand von Brighton’).
1948
Turner 1775–1851: Exposition de peintures organisée par la Tate Gallery pour le British Council, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, ?March 1948 (60, reproduced, as ‘La Plage à Brighton’).
1948
Turner 1775–1851: Tentoonstelling van schilderijen ingericht door de Tate Gallery voor The British Council in het Ministerie van Openbaar Onderwijs van Belgie, Palais voor Schone Kunst, Brussels and Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Liège, March–April 1948 (60, as ‘Het strand te Brighton’).
1950
Aquarelle aus dem Turner-Nachlass im Britischen Museum veranstaltet vom British Council, Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden, Mannheim, Munich, Nuremberg, ?September 1950–March 1951, September 1951–April 1952 (19, reproduced, as ‘Strand von Brighton’).
1961
J.W.M. [sic] Turner 1775–1851: Watercolours: On Loan to the National Gallery of Victoria on the Occasion of its Centenary from the Turner Bequest by Courtesy of the Trustees and Director of the British Museum, London, with the Assistance of the British Council, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, September–October 1961, National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, October–November 1961 (22, reproduced, as ‘Beach at Brighton’).
1963
Turner Watercolors from The British Museum: A Loan Exhibition Circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, September–October 1963, Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Texas, November 1963, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, December 1963–January 1964, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, January–March 1964, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, March–April 1964, Brooklyn Museum, New York, May 1964, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June–July 1964 (44, reproduced, as ‘Brighton, The Beach and Bathing Machines’).
1995
Brighton Revealed: Through Artists’ Eyes c.1760-c.1960, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, November 1995–January 1996 (30, reproduced, as ‘Bathing Machines, Brighton: preparatory study’).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.815, CCLXIII 11, as ‘On the sands’. c.1820–30.
1995
Ian Warrell, in David Beevers (ed.), John Roles, Warrell and others, Brighton Revealed: Through Artists’ Eyes c.1760-c.1960, exhibition catalogue, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery 1995, p.69 no.30, reproduced, as ‘Bathing Machines, Brighton: preparatory study’.
1997
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.26–7, p.94 Appendix I under ‘Brighton’, as ‘Brighton beach, looking eastwards’. c.1830, p.95 under ‘England and Wales Series’, as ‘Sketch for a view of Brighton beach, looking eastwards’. c.1830, p.104 Appendix II, as ‘Sketch: Brighton Beach’.
The subject was first published as Brighton Beach in 1947.1 Turner had drawing in the area in the mid-1790s; see the Studies near Brighton sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest XXX) and the watercolour Brighthelmstone of about 1796, which shows fishing boats on the beach (Victoria and Albert Museum, London),2 returning to the now fashionable resort in the mid 1820s; see for example the Brighton and Arundel sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCX).
Ian Warrell has compared the composition with a drawing in the Arundel and Shoreham sketchbook (Tate D22851; Turner Bequest CCXLV 40a).3 In proposing it as an undeveloped subject for Turner’s Picturesque Views in England and Wales, Eric Shanes describes it as ‘a look eastwards ... towards dazzlingly reflective terraced buildings, shadowed bathing machines and sunny but stormy weather’.4 There appear to be figures silhouetted against the sunlit buildings and at least one larger figure in the foreground.
Turner had shown Brighton’s beach, Royal Pavilion and Chain Pier from the sea in a watercolour (Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums, Brighton & Hove),5 engraved in 1824 as Brighthelmston, Sussex for the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England (Tate impressions: T04420, T04421, T05288–T05295, T05996)
See also the introductions to the present subsection of identified but unrealised subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
Technical notes:
A grey wash appears to have been applied to thin strips along the untrimmed left-hand, right-hand and bottom edges, apparently with the aid of a straight edge, although the function of this wash is unclear. The top edge has been torn irregularly along a fold, and the strip of dark blue-grey at the top left suggests the edge of the sky in another colour study made on the other half of the original Imperial-format sheet.
A grey wash appears to have been applied to thin strips along the untrimmed left-hand, right-hand and bottom edges, apparently with the aid of a straight edge, although the function of this wash is unclear. The top edge has been torn irregularly along a fold, and the strip of dark blue-grey at the top left suggests the edge of the sky in another colour study made on the other half of the original Imperial-format sheet.
Verso:
Blank, save for a little offset blue colour at the bottom left.
Blank, save for a little offset blue colour at the bottom left.
Matthew Imms
March 2013
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘Brighton Beach with Bathing Machines c.1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www