Oil paint on canvas
Netherlands
Tate Collection
Works with images
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>
Entrance Meuse OrangeMerchant on Bar Going to Pieces Brill Church bearing S E by S Masensluys E by S
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
boat, rowing
boat, sailing
cloud
countries and continents
figure
food and drink
fruit, orange
history
natural features (non-UK)
Netherlands
objects
people
places
politics and society
politics: House of Orange, decline, early 19th c.
river
River Meuse
sea
seascapes and coasts
ship - non-specific
shipwreck
society
trader
trading and commercial
transport: water
water: inland
wave
weather
work and occupations
<p>This painting shows a Dutch ship grounded on a sandbank. Fishermen search for its cargo of oranges lost overboard. Turner’s title locates this dangerous spot as the Meuse estuary in the Netherlands, and Brielle church is visible on the distant shore. The picture is a visual pun on the oranges and the Dutch royal house of Orange. The royal family had recently suffered huge financial losses during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15).</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2020</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
19 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
19 August 2009 – 19 July 2010
2010-07-19
2009-08-19
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-19
War and Peace
Collection based display
1 September 2009 – 15 January 2010
2010-01-15
1 September 2009 – 15 January 2010
2010-01-15
2009-09-01
National Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
2009-09-01
Reciprocal loan for Turner and the Masters
Loan-out
2 June 2011 – 22 April 2012
2012-04-22
2 June 2011 – 11 September 2011
2011-09-11
2011-06-02
Bucerius Kunst Forum (Hamburg, Germany)
http://www.buceriuskunstforum.de
1 October 2011 – 8 January 2012
2012-01-08
2011-10-01
National Museum (Krakow, Poland)
28 January 2012 – 22 April 2012
2012-04-22
2012-01-28
Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK)
2011-06-02
Turner and the Elements
Loan-out
1 August 2016 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
1 August 2016 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
2016-08-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2016-08-01
Clore 104 Turner exhibited
Collection based display
6 April 2020 – 27 November 2022
2022-11-27
6 April 2020
2020-04-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2020-04-06
Clore 107
Collection based display
28 October 2023 – 10 March 2024
2024-03-10
28 October 2023 – 10 March 2024
2024-03-10
2023-10-28
Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus (Munich, Germany)
2023-10-28
Turner at Lenbachhaus Munich
Loan-out
Entrance of the Meuse: Orange-Merchant on the Bar, Going to Pieces; Brill Church bearing S. E. by S., Masensluys E. by S.
support: 1753 × 2464 mm
frame: 2110 × 2820 × 140 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
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<p>This painting shows a Dutch ship grounded on a sandbank. Fishermen search for its cargo of oranges lost overboard. Turner’s title locates this dangerous spot as the Meuse estuary in the Netherlands, and Brielle church is visible on the distant shore. The picture is a visual pun on the oranges and the Dutch royal house of Orange. The royal family had recently suffered huge financial losses during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15). </p>
</div>

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2020-07-01T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>139. </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-entrance-of-the-meuse-orange-merchant-on-the-bar-going-to-pieces-brill-church-n00501" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00501</span></a>]<b> Entrance of the Meuse: Orange-Merchant on the Bar, going to Pieces; Brill Church bearing S.E. by S., Masensluys E. by S.</b> Exh 1819
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (501).
<br/>Canvas, 69 × 97 (175·5 × 246·5)
<br/><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (55, ‘Orange Merchant going to pieces’ 8'0" × 5'8 1/2"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1912.
<br/><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1819 (136); New Zealand (8), Australia and South Africa (56, repr.) 1936–9; Paris 1972 (263, repr.); R.A. 1974–5 (166).
<br/><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1860 (1903–12, vii, p. 376); Thornbury 1862, i, p. 301; 1877, pp. 435–6; Hamerton 1879, p. 169; A. H. Palmer, <i>The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer</i> 1892, p. 7; Bell 1901, p. 102 no. 142; Armstrong 1902, pp. 59, 230, repr. facing p. 84; Davies 1946, p. 186; Finberg 1961, pp. 259, 397, 481 no. 250; Gage 1967, p. 171; Louis Hawes, ‘Constable's Sky Sketches, iv. Turner's Skies 1817–19’, <i>Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes</i> xxxii 1969, p. 357, pl. 55c; Raymond Lister (ed.), <i>The Letters of Samuel Palmer</i> 1974, ii, p. 872; Herrmann 1975, pp. 26, 230, pl. 81; Gage 1980, p. 195.
<br/>
<br/>One of the series of large coast or harbour scenes in northern Europe painted in a style and tonality that owe much to Cuyp (see also Nos. 137, 231 and 232). The title embodies a typical pun, the ‘Orange Merchant’ not only hailing from the country ruled by the House of Orange but having spilled its cargo of oranges. ‘Masensluys’ is Maassluis, the other side of the Maas from Brill.
<br/>
<br/>There are three <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> sketches in the ‘Farnley’ sketchbook, one sketch in which is dated 1818 (CLIII-89 <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/recto-verso" title="Glossary definition for 'Recto / Verso'"><span>verso</span></a>, 90 verso and, less closely related, 41). There is also a related sketch in the ‘Hints River’ sketchbook of about the same date (CXLI-3 verso). The distant shoreline seems to be based on summary <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>drawings</span></a> in the ‘Dort’ sketchbook of 1817 (CLXII-81, 82 and 82 verso). The particularly highly developed study of cloud effects may owe something to the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> studies in the ‘Skies’ sketchbook, perhaps painted in 1818 (CLVIII).
<br/>
<br/>The picture was singled out for praise in the <i>Repository of Arts</i> for June 1819 in a review beginning ‘To speak of the extraordinary powers of this artist would indeed be a work of superogation’. It was also praised in the <i>British Press</i> for 10 May as ‘an admirable specimen of this Artist's unrivalled powers of imitation from nature’. The <i>Literary Gazette</i>
(untraced; see Finberg <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 259) said of it that it exhibited ‘some of the noblest powers 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/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></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/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>’. However, the <i>Annals of the Fine Arts</i> for the year found it ‘Too scattered and frittered in its parts to be reckoned among Turner's happiest productions. Compared with himself, this picture suffers, —compared with others, it maintains Turner's rank uninjured’. It was the first Turner to be seen by the fourteen-year-old Samuel Palmer who, writing on 9 December 1872 to George Richmond's daughter Julia, said, ‘The first exhibition I saw, in 1819 is fixed in my memory by the first Turner “The Orange merchant on the bar” —and being by nature a lover of smudginess, I have revelled in him from that day to this’.
<br/>
<br/>In a letter to his dealer Griffith in 1844 Turner mentioned this picture among others ‘subject to neglect and dirt’, speaking of its ‘accidental stains’.</p>
<p>
<br/><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
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults boat, rowing boat, sailing cloud countries and continents figure food and drink fruit, orange history natural features (non-UK) Netherlands objects people places politics and society politics: House of Orange, decline, early 19th c. river River Meuse sea seascapes and coasts ship - non-specific shipwreck society trader trading and commercial transport: water water: inland wave weather work and occupations