Tate Collection
Works with images
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
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>
Sailing Boat in a Rough Sea
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
boat, sailing
cloud
sea
seascapes and coasts
society
storm
transport: water
wave
weather
<p>This piece of millboard was used by Turner, who began a sketch on the other side. We are showing it here as an example of the sort of board that William Blake used for printing.</p><p>Millboard was made from waste paper, old tarred rope and/or pulp leftover from paper-making. The paper fibres were pressed together without added glue, and ‘milled’ smooth. Animal glue size could be applied later to make it less absorbent. It was easily cut to size.</p><p>The material would have been very suitable for Blake’s colour printing experiments. It was sold by artists’ colourmen, and was not expensive.</p><p>Several contemporary artists painted on millboard, as JMW Turner did here. This example is thin, and now too fragile to allow us to display of both sides at once. Blake would have used thicker board for printing.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper unique
24 November 2003 – 22 November 2004
2004-11-22
10 November 2003
2003-11-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-11-24
William Blake the Painter at Work
Collection based display
Sailing Boat in a Rough Sea
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="para0">
<span class="text1">This piece of millboard was used by Turner, who began </span><span class="text2">a sketch on the other side. We are showing it here</span><span class="text1"> as an example of the sort of board that William Blake      used for printing. </span>
</div>
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<span class="text1">
<br/> </span>
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<span class="text1">Millboard was made from waste <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/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a>, old tarred rope </span><span class="text5">and/or pulp leftover from paper-making. The paper </span><span class="text1">fibres were pressed together without added glue, and      ‘milled’ smooth. Animal glue size could be applied later to      make it less absorbent. It was easily cut to size. </span>
</div>
<div class="para0">
<span class="text1">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="para0">
<span class="text1">The material would have been very suitable for </span><span class="text4">Blake’s</span><span class="text1"> </span><span class="text5">colour printing experiments. It was sold by artists’ </span><span class="text1">colourmen, and was not expensive. </span>
</div>
<div class="para0">
<span class="text1">
<br/> </span>
</div>
<div class="para0">
<span class="text5">Several contemporary artists painted on millboard,</span><span class="text1"> as JMW Turner did here. This example is thin, and now      too fragile to allow us to display of both sides at once. Blake would have      used thicker board for printing. </span>
</div>

Display caption
2004-09-08T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p>[from]<b> Nos. 487–500: Sketches of Coast and other Scenes, <i>c.</i> 1840–5?</b></p>
<p>THESE fourteen sketches on millboard were discovered in the early 1960s in a parcel among the works from the Turner Bequest transferred from the Tate Gallery to the British Museum in 1931; they had not been numbered or included in Finberg's 1909 <i>Inventory</i>. They fall into three groups according to size, approx. 10 1/2 × 12 in., 9 3/4 × 13 1/2 in. and 12 × 19 in., but form a homogeneous group technically and stylistically. Two further sketches from the same parcel are distinct in style, technique and the type of millboard used (see 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-red-sky-over-a-beach-d36676" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>D36676</span></a>] and 486 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-shore-scene-with-waves-and-breakwater-d36680" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>D36680</span></a>]). <i>Ship in a Storm</i> (No. 489 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-ship-in-a-storm-d36682" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>D36682</span></a>]) is close in <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> to <i>Snow Storm—Steam-Boat off a Harbour Mouth</i>, exhibited in 1842 (see No. 398 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-snow-storm-steam-boat-off-a-harbours-mouth-n00530" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00530</span></a>]), while others from the group such as <i>Sunset seen from a Beach with Breakwater</i> (No. 497 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-sunset-seen-from-a-beach-with-breakwater-d36679" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>D36679</span></a>]) are the equivalent in oils of very late <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>watercolours</span></a> such as those in the ‘Ambleteuse and Wimereux’ sketchbook of 1845 (CCCLVII). However, compositional resemblances help very little in dating Turner's late works and comparison between works in different <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/medium" title="Glossary definition for 'Medium'"><span>media</span></a> is equally fruitless.</p>
<p>Thirteen unspecified sketches from Nos 485–500 were first exhibited at the British Museum in 1962 (see under ‘Lit.’ below).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> <i>Sketch Books and Albums of Drawings, German Gothic and Renaissance Prints: Oil Sketches by J.M.W. Turner. Exhibition held in the Department of Prints and Drawings</i> 1962; ‘British Museum: Rediscovered Oil Sketches by J.M.W. Turner’, <i>Illustrated London News</i> 10 March 1962, p. 371.</p>
<p></p>
<p><b>498. </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-sailing-boat-in-a-rough-sea-d36677" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>D36677</span></a>]<b> Sailing Boat in a Rough Sea</b> <i>c.</i>
1840–5?</p>
<p>THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON (1972.U.748)</p>
<p>Millboard, irregular, 10 3/16 × 11 15/16 (26·5 × 30·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856.</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
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
boat, sailing cloud sea seascapes and coasts society storm transport: water wave weather
M 1972 U748