Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on loan
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Stormy Sea with Dolphins
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
abstraction
animals: fish and aquatic life
dolphin
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
from recognisable sources
gestural
landscape
sea
seascapes and coasts
storm
weather
painting oil paint canvas
4 September 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
4 September 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
2004-09-04
Statens Museum for Kunst (Copenhagen, Denmark)
2004-09-04
Turner and Constable and their European Contemporaries
Loan-out
5 October 2007 – 6 January 2008
2008-01-06
5 October 2007 – 6 January 2008
2008-01-06
2007-10-05
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (Frankfurt, Germany)
http://www.schirn.de
2007-10-05
Turner - Hugo -  Moreau: Abstraction between the Image made by Chance and the Aesthetics of Effect
Loan-out
23 March 2009 – 3 August 2009
2009-08-03
20 March 2009 – 3 August 2009
2009-08-03
2009-03-20
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-03-23
Limitless Horizons: Turner's Later Seascapes
Collection based display
8 February 2013 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
8 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-08
Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide, Australia)
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au
4 June 2013 – 8 September 2013
2013-09-08
2013-06-04
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
8 October 2013 – 18 December 2013
2013-12-18
2013-10-08
Toyko Metropolitan Art Museum (Toyko, Japan)
1 January 2014 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
2014-01-01
Kobe City Museum (Kobe, Japan)
2013-02-08
J.M.W. Turner: Makings of a Master
Loan-out
30 September 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
30 September 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
2017-09-30
Hull Maritime Museum (Hull, UK)
2017-09-30
Turner and the Whale
Loan-out
21 March 2018 – 10 January 2021
2021-01-10
21 March 2018 – 26 August 2018
2018-08-26
2018-03-21
Chiostro del Bramante (Rome, Italy)
http://www.chiostrodelbramante.it/
16 March 2020 – 10 January 2021
2021-01-10
2020-03-16
Musée Jacquemart-André (Paris, France)
2018-03-21
Turner Watercolours
Tate partnerships & programmes
6 June 2019 – 18 August 2019
2019-08-18
6 June 2019 – 18 August 2019
2019-08-18
2019-06-06
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
2019-06-06
Impression, soleil levant
Loan-out
11 March 2022 – 18 June 2022
2022-06-18
11 March 2022 – 18 June 2022
2022-06-18
2022-03-11
Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK)
2022-03-11
JMW Turner
Loan-out
26 September 2022 – 15 September 2023
2023-09-15
26 September 2022 – 15 September 2023
2023-09-15
2022-09-26
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
2022-09-26
JMW Turner and Lamin Fofana: Dark Waters
Collection based display
6 July 2024 – 15 January 2028
2028-01-15
6 July 2024 – 1 September 2024
2024-09-01
2024-07-06
Grimaldi Forum (Monaco, Monaco)
30 September 2024 – 7 May 2025
2025-05-07
2024-09-30
Museum of Art Pudong (Shanghai, China)
21 June 2025 – 5 October 2025
2025-10-05
2025-06-21
Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane, Australia)
1 June 2026 – 1 October 2026
2026-10-01
2026-06-01
External
15 November 2026 – 15 March 2027
2027-03-15
2026-11-15
External
1 May 2027 – 1 September 2027
2027-09-01
2027-05-01
External
15 October 2027 – 15 January 2028
2028-01-15
2027-10-15
External
2024-07-06
Turner's Sublime Legacy
Tate partnerships & programmes
Stormy Sea with Dolphins
support: 902 × 1213 mm
frame: 1124 × 1435 × 70 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<p>[from]<b> Nos. 453–86: Late Unfinished Sea Pieces, <i>c</i>. 1830–45</b></p>
<p>THERE are two main problems about this group of works. The first is the question of dating: the dates adopted here are highly tentative and are based on the supposition that there is a logical progression from a more substantial, three-dimensional style to one that is more impressionistic and less solid, together with a feeling that Turner's colouring was perhaps at its strongest from the early to the mid 1830s. However, as will be noted, the compilers do not always agree on even the tentative datings given here. In any case, what may look like a less three-dimensional picture may in fact be merely a less finished picture.</p>
<p>The second problem is that of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/provenance" title="Glossary definition for 'Provenance'"><span>provenance</span></a> and authenticity, in particular as it concerns smaller pictures outside the Turner Bequest, Nos. 474–84, together with the somewhat similar works no longer accepted as genuine, Nos. 555–8. That some such unfinished works escaped the Turner Bequest is certain, and a foundation is provided by those works that can be definitely or tentatively traced to John Pound, the son by her first marriage of Mrs Booth, Turner's mistress and housekeeper. In reviews of our first edition, exception was taken to some of our attributions by Luke Herrmann (Nos. 475, 478 and 484) and Jerrold Ziff (Nos. 480 and 481); interestingly, they do not agree. Of the works they doubt, No. 478 seems definitely to have been in the Pound sale at Christie's in 1865, while Nos. 480, 481 and 484 bear labels or are said to come from the Pound family.</p>
<p>However, one should never let an apparently sound provenance stand in the way of one's judgment based on the visual evidence, and in this case there is one further element, the fact that, from 1848, for apparently the only time in his life, Turner employed an assistant, Francis Sherrell. According to Bernard Falk (1938, p. 213), whose reference is based on an obituary in the <i>Isle of Thanet Gazette</i> for 23 September 1916, Turner gave Sherrell lessons in return for various services such as stretching his <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvases</span></a> and running errands; John Gage (1969, p. 171) suggests that Sherrell may also have cleaned some of the pictures in Turner's studio at the instigation of the dealer Thomas Griffith, who was active in trying to obtain sales for Turner at this time. Nothing further seems to be known about Sherrell save that he died at Thanet in 1916. It is perhaps an unworthy suspicion to suggest that he, more than anybody else, would have been in a position to imitate Turner's late style and that such imitations could have been left in Turner's studio and acquired by the Pound family.</p>
<p>Another suspicious circumstance is that, although Turner tended to work on standard sizes of canvas, only a few of those of this group of pictures that are outside the Turner Bequest can be matched with works in the Bequest: No. 472, near enough Turner's standard three feet by four feet; No. 474, much the same size as Nos. 457 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-waves-breaking-against-the-wind-n02881" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02881</span></a>] and 458 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-waves-breaking-on-a-lee-shore-at-margate-study-for-rockets-and-blue-lights-n02882" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02882</span></a>]; Nos. 475, 482, and 556a, close to No. 459 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-waves-breaking-on-a-shore-n05495" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05495</span></a>]; and Nos. 483 and 484, the same size as Nos. 485 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-riders-on-a-beach-d36675" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>D36675</span></a>] and 486.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 62; Herrmann 1978, p. 773; Wilton 1979, p. 224; Ziff 1980, p. 167.</p>
<p></p>
<p><b>463. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-stormy-sea-with-dolphins-n04664" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04664</span></a>]<b> Stormy Sea with Dolphins</b> <i>c.</i>
1835–40</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (4664)</p>
<p>Canvas, 35 3/4 × 48 (91 × 102)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (? 119, one of 36 each 4'0" × 3'0"; identified 1946 by probable number on back); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1948.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> New York 1966 (35); Cologne (60, repr.), Rome (61, repr.) and Warsaw (60, repr.) 1966–7; R.A. 1974–5 (501); Hague 1978–9 (xiii, repr. in colour); Paris 1983–4 (56, repr.); Birmingham 1984.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Davies 1946, pp. 157, 188 n. 14; Gowing 1966, p. 45.</p>
<p>Martin Davies suggests that this may be a sunrise scene, though a fire at sea, brighter than but analagous to <i>Stormy Sea with Blazing Wreck</i> (No. 462 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-stormy-sea-with-blazing-wreck-n04658" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04658</span></a>]), is another possibility. The colour is much stronger than in most of Turner's stormy seas, as is also the case with <i>Slavers</i>, exhibited in 1840 (No. 385), but the dating is very uncertain. Evelyn Joll (exh. cat. Paris 1983–4) dates this picture to about 1840 or a little later.</p>
<p>The back of the original canvas bears the stamp of ‘A. SHERBORN &amp; CO./ARTIST COLORMEN/121, OXFORD’.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-10-06T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
abstraction animals: fish and aquatic life dolphin emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities from recognisable sources gestural landscape sea seascapes and coasts storm weather