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>
Seascape with Distant Coast
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
abstraction
cloud
coast
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
from recognisable sources
gestural
landscape
sea
seascapes and coasts
weather
<p>This is one of many unfinished sea paintings found in Turner’s studio after his death. It represents a pivotal point in Turner’s painting process. Areas of light and shade have been mapped out but there is as yet no narrative and no distinctive shapes. From here Turner could have worked this up into any subject that took his imagination. The significance of the letters in the top righthand corner is not known. The inscription reads: ‘M [with ‘c’ inscribed directly below] M N Ns T Ts’. It appears to have been done before the sky had fully dried. This is one of many unfinished sea paintings found in Turner’s studio after his death. It represents a pivotal point in Turner’s painting process. Areas of light and shade have been mapped out but there is as yet no narrative and no distinctive shapes. From here Turner could have worked this up into any subject that took his imagination.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
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
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 November 2011 – 1 May 2012
2012-05-01
12 November 2011 – 1 May 2012
2012-05-01
2011-11-12
Palazzo Ducale (Genoa, Italy)
http://www.palazzoducale.genova.it
2011-11-12
Van Gogh and Gauguin's Journey. Painting the experience of spaces from Turner to Rothko.
Loan-out
31 October 2012 – 15 September 2013
2013-09-15
22 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-22
CaixaForum Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)
http://www3.lacaixa.es
19 June 2013 – 15 September 2013
2013-09-15
2013-06-19
CaixaForum Madrid (Madrid, Spain)
2012-10-31
Seduced by Art: Photography Past and Present
Loan-out
21 November 2013 – 1 September 2014
2014-09-01
21 November 2013 – 21 April 2014
2014-04-21
2013-11-21
National Maritime Museum (London, UK)
http://www.nmm.ac.uk
4 June 2014 – 1 September 2014
2014-09-01
2014-06-04
Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, USA)
http://www.pem.org
2013-11-21
Turner and Marine Painting: Imagining the Sea, 1796 - 1899
Loan-out
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
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
Seascape with Distant Coast
support: 914 × 1219 mm
frame: 1070 × 1379 × 70 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 many unfinished sea paintings found in Turner’s studio after his death. It represents a pivotal point in Turner’s painting process. Areas of light and shade have been mapped out but there is as yet no narrative and no distinctive shapes. From here Turner could have worked this up into any subject that took his imagination. The significance of the letters in the top righthand corner is not known. The inscription reads: ‘M [with ‘c’ inscribed directly below] M N Ns T Ts’. It appears to have been done before the sky had fully dried. This is one of many unfinished sea paintings found in Turner’s studio after his death. It represents a pivotal point in Turner’s painting process.<br/> Areas of light and shade have been mapped out but there is as yet no narrative and no distinctive shapes. From here Turner could have worked this up into any subject that took his imagination.</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>467. </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-distant-coast-n05516" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05516</span></a>]<b> Seascape with Distant Coast</b> <i>c.</i> 1840</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (5516)</p>
<p>Canvas, 36 × 48 (91·5 × 122)</p>
<p>Inscribed. ‘M [with ‘c’ inscribed directly below] M N Ns T Ts’ upper right. </p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (106, one of 36 each 4'0" × 3'0"; identified 1946 and 1973 by chalk number on back); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1947.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> R.A. 1974–5 (503); Paris 1983–4 (58, repr.).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Davies 1946, pp. 164, 188; Butlin 1981, p. 45.</p>
<p>Cleaning in 1973 revealed that this is particularly close in style and handling to No. 466 [<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-storm-coming-on-n04445" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04445</span></a>], tentatively dated <i>c.</i> 1840. The significance of the painted inscription, which seems to have been done before the paint finally dried (i.e., in Turner's studio), is unclear; the nearest parallel is the set of letters inscribed down the left-hand edge of <i>Forum Romanum</i>
(No. 233 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-forum-romanum-for-mr-soanes-museum-n00504" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00504</span></a>]).</p>
<p>There are some losses of paint down the right-hand edge. Traces 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/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> can be detected in the middle of the sky, and possibly in the sea as well. The canvas bears a Thomas Brown stamp of a kind that seems to have gone out of use in about 1839, but the picture could, of course, have been painted after that date.</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
abstraction cloud coast emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities from recognisable sources gestural landscape sea seascapes and coasts weather