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>
Seascape with Buoy
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
buoy
cloud
danger
emotions, concepts and ideas
sea
seascapes and coasts
society
storm
transport: water
universal concepts
wave
weather
<p>This canvas is probably the raw beginnings of the kind of marine subject Turner painted from the 1830s onwards. He styled them after the paintings of 17th-century Dutch artists. He has painted a buoy in the foreground. As buoys mark shipping lanes or warn against invisible underwater obstacles, Turner may be hinting at the hazards of sailing.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
22 July 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-07-22
Finished or Unfinished
Collection based display
1 October 2012 – 31 January 2013
2013-01-31
14 January 2013 – 20 January 2013
2013-01-20
2013-01-14
Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK)
2012-10-01
Alex Katz: Give me tomorrow
Loan-out
24 April 2015 – 20 July 2015
2015-07-20
24 April 2015 – 20 July 2015
2015-07-20
2015-04-24
Oita Prefectural Museum (Oita, Japan)
2015-04-24
Modern: Blossoming Garden
Loan-out
30 July 2016 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
30 July 2016 – 1 March 2020
2020-03-01
2016-07-30
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2016-07-30
Clore 106 Sea Painter
Collection based display
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
3 February 2024 – 28 April 2024
2024-04-28
3 February 2024 – 28 April 2024
2024-04-28
2024-02-03
Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK)
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk
2024-02-03
Entangled Pasts: 1768-now
Loan-out
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
Seascape with Buoy
support: 914 × 1219 mm
frame: 1066 × 1371 × 89 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 canvas is probably the raw beginnings of the kind of marine subject Turner painted from the 1830s onwards. He styled them after the paintings of 17th-century Dutch artists. He has painted a buoy in the foreground. As buoys mark shipping lanes or warn against invisible underwater obstacles, Turner may be hinting at the hazards of sailing.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2020-07-01T00:00:00
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>468. </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-seascape-with-buoy-n05477" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05477</span></a>]<b> Seascape with Buoy</b> <i>c.</i> 1840</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (5477)</p>
<p>Canvas, 36 × 48 (91·5 × 122)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (123, one of 36 each 4'0" × 3'0"; identified 1946 by chalk number on back); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1947.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> <i>Out of this World</i> Fine Arts Gallery, University of St Thomas, Houston, Texas, March–April 1964 (32); on loan to the Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, 1964–72; Tate Gallery 1977 (21, repr.); Athens 1980 (75, repr. in colour); on loan to Gemäldegalerie Berlin-Dahlem 1983–5.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Davies 1946, pp. 157, 188 no. 14.</p>
<p>Tentatively datable to <i>c.</i> 1840. The buoy was added in water-soluble paint.</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
2004-10-07T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
buoy cloud danger emotions, concepts and ideas sea seascapes and coasts society storm transport: water universal concepts wave weather