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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Devon Rivers, No.2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Hulks, Probably on the Hamoaze or the Lower Tamar 1814

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Hulks, Probably on the Hamoaze or the Lower Tamar’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
Hulks, Probably on the Hamoaze or the Lower Tamar 1814
D09671
Turner Bequest CXXXIII 3
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 178 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘3’ bottom right, descending vertically, and ‘294’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXXXIII 3’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There is no indication of a specific setting other than the distant trees on the left, the focus being shipping in the foreground, comprising several hulks (decommissioned, dismasted warships). Interspersed with a few Yorkshire subjects (see the sketchbook’s Introduction), there are further such sketches interspersed with topographical views in the Hamoaze and lower reaches of the River Tamar north-west of Plymouth Sound as far as folio 29 recto (D09703). Andrew Wilton has suggested a connection between these studies and an atmospheric ‘colour beginning’ of a hulk in an estuary by moonlight (Tate D17169; Turner Bequest CXCVI E).1
1
See Wilton 1983, p.200.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
July 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Hulks, Probably on the Hamoaze or the Lower Tamar 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-hulks-probably-on-the-hamoaze-or-the-lower-tamar-r1147222, accessed 17 July 2024.