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 Blazing Wreck
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
fire
natural phenomena
night
seascapes and coasts
shipwreck
society
storm
times of the day
transport: water
wave
weather
<p>Turner made extensive studies of shipwrecks in two sketchbooks of about 1805, and produced his first painting of the subject the same year. The theme recurred frequently in his work, including <i>Disaster at Sea</i> (about 1833), on display in Room 9.</p><p>The present picture shows a burning boat partially hidden by waves, which are the main subject. Like many of his later sea pieces, the view is from the shore, where a group of onlookers has gathered.</p><p>This work may be a companion to <i>Yacht Approaching the Coast</i> displayed nearby; perhaps pairing light and dark.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2010</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
26 August 2002 – 18 July 2005
2005-07-18
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-08-26
Marine Painting
Collection based display
4 April 2003 – 16 November 2003
2003-11-16
4 April 2003 – 16 November 2003
2003-11-16
2003-04-04
Mu.ZEE (Ostend, Belgium)
2003-04-04
Marines in Confrontation
Loan-out
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
14 March 2008 – 9 June 2008
2008-06-09
14 March 2008 – 9 June 2008
2008-06-09
2008-03-14
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
2008-03-14
The Triumph of Landscape: Turner to Monet
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
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
5 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
2016-01-03
5 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
2016-01-03
2015-09-05
Museum de Fundatie (Zwolle, Netherlands)
5 September 2015 – 3 January 2016
2016-01-03
2015-09-05
Rijksmuseum Twenthe (Enschede, Netherlands)
2015-09-05
Danger and Beauty - William Turner and the Tradition of the Sublime
Loan-out
13 October 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
13 October 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
2017-10-13
Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK)
2017-10-13
My Bed
Loan-out
9 November 2020 – 18 July 2021
2021-07-18
9 November 2020 – 18 July 2021
2021-07-18
2020-11-09
Musée d’Orsay (Paris, France)
2020-11-09
The Origins. The rise and fall of Nature at the age of Darwin
Loan-out
16 October 2021 – 14 July 2023
2023-07-14
16 October 2021 – 6 March 2022
2022-03-06
2021-10-16
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (Aarhus, Denmark)
18 May 2022 – 11 September 2022
2022-09-11
2022-05-18
Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain)
http://www.mnac.es
8 October 2022 – 5 February 2023
2023-02-05
2022-10-08
National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland)
http://www.nationalgallery.ie
3 March 2023 – 25 June 2023
2023-06-25
2023-03-03
Fondation Pierre Gianadda (Martigny, Switzerland)
2021-10-16
Turner Watercolours: Sun is God
Tate partnerships & programmes
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 Blazing Wreck
support: 994 × 1416 mm
frame: 1208 × 1635 × 65 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>Turner made extensive studies of shipwrecks in two sketchbooks of about 1805, and produced his first painting of the subject the same year. The theme recurred frequently in his work, including <i>Disaster at Sea</i> (about 1833), on display in Room 9.
<br/>
<br/>The present picture shows a burning boat partially hidden by waves, which are the main subject. Like many of his later sea pieces, the view is from the shore, where a group of onlookers has gathered.
<br/>
<br/>This work may be a companion to <i>Yacht Approaching the Coast</i> displayed nearby; perhaps pairing light and dark.
<br/>
<br/></p>

Display caption
2010-02-18T00:00:00
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>462. </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-blazing-wreck-n04658" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04658</span></a>] <b>Stormy Sea with Blazing Wreck</b> <i>c.</i>
1835–40</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (4658)</p>
<p>Canvas, 39 1/8 × 55 3/4 (99·5 × 141·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (? 267, 1 unidentified 4'8 1/2" × 3'3 1/4"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1938.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1974–5 (495); Hague 1978–9 (xii, repr. in colour); Paris 1983–4 (57, repr.); Birmingham 1984.</p>
<p>One of Turner's relatively rare night scenes; perhaps, on account of its unusual size, to be seen as a companion to <i>Yacht approaching the Coast</i>
(No. 461 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-yacht-approaching-the-coast-n04662" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04662</span></a>]). The figures on the shore and the skeletal fragments of the wrecked ship echo the finished picture <i>Wreckers-Coast of Northumberland</i>, exhibited in 1834 (No. 357), but the Tate picture is more dramatic and probably a bit later. Evelyn Joll (exh. cat., Paris 1983–4) dates Nos. 461 [<span>N04662</span>] and 462 [<span>N04658</span>] to <i>c.</i> 1840.</p>
<p>As in the case of No. 461 [<span>N04662</span>], the crispness of 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/i/impasto" title="Glossary definition for 'Impasto'"><span>impasto</span></a> has been lost, apparently during relining. Turner himself added strips of a finer canvas, between one and two cm. wide, along the top and bottom.</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
fire natural phenomena night seascapes and coasts shipwreck society storm times of the day transport: water wave weather