Oil paint on canvas
Tate Britain
Tate Collection
Works with images
Works on display
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>
Sunrise with Sea Monsters
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
animals: fantastic
mist
sea
sea monster
seascapes and coasts
sunrise
times of the day
wave
weather
<p>This is one of Turner’s most mysterious unfinished paintings. The shapes of two or more giant fish can be seen against a yellow sunrise. Dark brown hatched lines to the left of the fish may suggest netting or fish scales. Turner would have read of sightings and stories of mysterious marine creatures by sailors engaged in Britain’s multiplying naval business interests. Despite its bright tonality, this work may relate to Turner’s frequent depictions of the sea as dark place.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
23 July 2001 – 16 June 2002
2002-06-16
23 July 2001 – 16 June 2002
2002-06-16
2001-07-23
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-07-23
Painting Seascapes
Collection based display
5 August 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-08-05
Turner at Tate Britain
Collection based display
9 June 2003 – 10 May 2004
2004-05-10
9 June 2003 – 8 September 2003
2003-09-08
2003-06-09
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, USA)
http://www.clarkart.edu/
24 October 2003 – 3 January 2004
2004-01-03
2003-10-24
Manchester Art Gallery (Manchester, UK)
http://www.manchestergalleries.org
15 February 2004 – 10 May 2004
2004-05-10
2004-02-15
Burrell Collection (Glasgow, UK)
2003-06-09
Turner: The Late Seascapes
Loan-out
14 October 2005 – 1 May 2006
2006-05-01
14 October 2005 – 1 May 2006
2006-05-01
2005-10-14
Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, USA)
http://www.dia.org
2005-10-14
Reciprocal Loan with Fuseli
Loan-out
1 October 2007 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
1 October 2007 – 6 January 2008
2008-01-06
2007-10-01
National Gallery of Art (Washington DC, USA)
10 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
2008-02-10
Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, USA)
http://www.DallasMuseumofArt.org
23 June 2008 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
2008-06-23
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2007-10-01
JMW Turner
Tate partnerships & programmes
12 August 2009 – 27 July 2010
2010-07-27
12 August 2009 – 27 July 2010
2010-07-27
2009-08-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-12
Waves, Whalers and Wrecks
Collection based display
22 July 2010 – 9 April 2012
2012-04-09
6 August 2010 – 9 April 2012
2012-04-09
2010-08-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-07-22
Late Turner
Collection based display
20 July 2013 – 31 January 2014
2014-01-31
20 July 2013 – 22 September 2013
2013-09-22
2013-07-20
Nottingham Contemporary (Nottingham, UK)
http://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/
2013-07-20
Aquatopia
Loan-out
20 July 2013 – 26 January 2014
2014-01-26
20 July 2013 – 22 September 2013
2013-09-22
2013-07-20
Nottingham Contemporary (Nottingham, UK)
http://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/
12 October 2013 – 26 January 2014
2014-01-26
2013-10-12
Tate St Ives (St Ives, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/stives/
2013-07-20
Aquatopia
Exhibition
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
10 September 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
2014-09-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
24 February 2015 – 24 May 2015
2015-05-24
2015-02-24
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA)
20 June 2015 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
2015-06-20
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (San Francisco, USA)
http://www.famsf.org
2014-09-10
Late Turner: Painting Set Free
Exhibition
24 February 2015 – 31 January 2016
2016-01-31
24 February 2015 – 24 May 2015
2015-05-24
2015-02-24
J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA)
20 June 2015 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
2015-06-20
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum
31 October 2015 – 31 January 2016
2016-01-31
2015-10-31
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
http://www.ago.net
2015-02-24
Late Turner
Loan-out
6 July 2019 – 2 May 2021
2021-05-02
6 July 2019 – 13 October 2019
2019-10-13
2019-07-06
Kunstmuseum (Luzern, Switzerland)
http://www.kunstmuseumluzern.ch
8 November 2019 – 26 January 2020
2020-01-26
2019-11-08
LWL-Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Westfälisches (Munster, Germany)
http://landesmuseum.lwl.org
20 February 2020 – 7 September 2020
2020-09-07
2020-02-20
Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville, USA)
15 October 2020 – 2 May 2021
2021-05-02
2020-10-15
Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec (Québec, Canada)
http://www.mnba.qc.ca
2019-07-06
The Sea and the Alps: Turner's Quest for the Sublime
Tate partnerships & programmes
13 March 2023
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-03-13
Gallery 105
Collection based display
Sunrise with Sea Monsters
support: 914 × 1219 mm
frame: 1066 × 1373 × 75 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
<div class="text">
<p>This is one of Turner’s most mysterious unfinished paintings. The shapes of two or more giant fish can be seen against a yellow sunrise. Dark brown hatched lines to the left of the fish may suggest netting or fish scales. Turner would have read of sightings and stories of mysterious marine creatures by sailors engaged in Britain’s multiplying naval business interests. Despite its bright tonality, this work may relate to Turner’s frequent depictions of the sea as dark place.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2023-10-25T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<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>473. </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-sunrise-with-sea-monsters-n01990" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01990</span></a>]<b> Sunrise with Sea Monsters</b> <i>c.</i> 1845</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (1990)</p>
<p>Canvas, 36 × 48 (91·5 × 122)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1906.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Amsterdam, Berne, Paris, Brussels, Liege (40), Venice and Rome (49) 1947–8; New York 1966 (36, repr. in colour p. 47); Paris 1972 (275, repr.); R.A. 1974–5 (507); Leningrad and Moscow 1975–6 (81).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> MacColl 1920, p. 30; Gowing 1966, pp. 38, 48, repr. in colour p. 47; Brill 1969, p. 23; Reynolds 1969, p. 198.</p>
<p>Nearer to the <i>Whalers</i> pictures of 1845 and 1846 (see Nos. 414 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-whalers-n00545" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00545</span></a>] –415, 423 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-hurrah-for-the-whaler-erebus-another-fish-n00546" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00546</span></a>] and 426 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-whalers-boiling-blubber-entangled-in-flaw-ice-endeavouring-to-extricate-themselves-n00547" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00547</span></a>]) than to the <i>Slavers</i> of 1840 (No. 385) and therefore probably to be dated <i>c.</i> 1845. There is a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> of a fairly similar <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/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> in the ‘Whalers’ sketchbook (CCCLIII-21) and the group of sea monsters is also related to Turner's various studies of fish, such as that in the Victoria and Albert Museum (repr. in colour Butlin 1962, pl. 24). John Gage has suggested (exh. cat., Paris 1972) that Turner's interest in the fantastic and monstrous aspects of fish was further suggested by ‘Walk the Third: Summer— Moonlight’ in the Rev. Thomas Gisborne's <i>Walks in a Forest</i>, published in 1794 but quoted by Turner in connection with his <i>Dawn of Christianity</i>, exhibited in 1841 (No. 394).</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
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
animals: fantastic mist sea sea monster seascapes and coasts sunrise times of the day wave weather