Oil on board
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>
Two Figures on a Beach with a Boat
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
beach
boat, sailing
cloud
figure
people
sea
seascapes and coasts
society
transport: water
wave
weather
<p>This is from a series of oil sketches that Turner made on millboard. The series was painted late in his career. Although small boards like this one were often used by artists working directly from nature, Turner made most of his oil sketches in his studio. He worked either from pencil sketches or from memory. These works reveal how Turner used oil paint to sketch out details of land, sea and sky. In the examples shown here he also included figures within the landscape.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2018</em></p>
paper unique oil board
26 May 2003 – 8 December 2003
2003-12-08
26 May 2003
2003-05-26
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-05-26
British Watercolours: Turner and his Contemporaries around 1840
Collection based display
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
16 April 2013 – 30 June 2013
2013-06-30
16 April 2013
2013-04-16
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2013-04-16
Elements of Nature
Collection based display
11 July 2016 – 15 March 2020
2020-03-15
11 July 2016 – 15 March 2020
2020-03-15
2016-07-11
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2016-07-11
Clore 103 In the Studio
Collection based display
Two Figures on a Beach with a Boat
support: 245 × 347 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 from a series of oil sketches that Turner made on millboard. The series was painted late in his career. Although small boards like this one were often used by artists working directly from nature, Turner made most of his oil sketches in his studio. He worked either from pencil sketches or from memory. These works reveal how Turner used oil paint to sketch out details of land, sea and sky. In the examples shown here he also included figures within the landscape.</p>
</div>

Display caption
2018-09-05T00:00:00
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>499. </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-two-figures-on-a-beach-with-a-boat-d36681" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>D36681</span></a>]<b> Two Figures on a Beach with a Boat</b> <i>c.</i>
1840–5? </p>
<p>THE BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON (1972.U.747)</p>
<p>Millboard, irregular, 9 1/2 × 13 3/4 (24·5 × 34·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Tokyo, Osaka and Hong Kong 1963–4 (8, repr. in colour); R.A. 1974–5 (499).</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
adults beach boat, sailing cloud figure people sea seascapes and coasts society transport: water wave weather
M 1972 U747