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>
A Disaster at Sea
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
birth to death
child
children
cloud
crime and punishment
crime and punishment: transportation, 18th c.
death
destruction
disaster: wreck of ‘Amphitrite’, 1833
diseases and conditions
drowned
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
England
English Channel
fear
fire
group
groups
history
natural phenomena
night
people
places
politics and society
prisoner
sea
seascapes and coasts
shipwreck
smoke
society
times of the day
transport: water
UK countries and regions
UK natural features
universal concepts
wave
weather
woman
<p>This unfinished painting probably depicts a real tragedy. It may show the <span>Amphitrite</span>, which left London for New South Wales in August 1833 carrying 108 women convicted of crimes, and 12 of their children. When it ran in to difficulty near Boulogne, France, the captain refused offers of rescue. The <span>Amphitrite</span> broke up and only three people aboard survived. In 2022 another possible subject, the <span>Hibernia</span>, was identified. Leaving Liverpool in December 1832 it carried 209 emigrants seeking new prospects in Australia. It caught fire in the South Atlantic, leaving 153 dead. Reports revealed there were not enough lifeboats for all.</p><p><em>Gallery label, October 2023</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
5 March 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
5 March 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
2001-03-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-03-05
Painting Landscape and History [TB CL2002]
Collection based display
6 February 2003 – 4 January 2004
2004-01-04
6 February 2003 – 11 May 2003
2003-05-11
2003-02-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
8 June 2003 – 7 September 2003
2003-09-07
2003-06-08
Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, USA)
2003-02-06
Constable to Delacroix: British Art and the French Romantics 1820 - 1840
Exhibition
1 October 2007 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
1 October 2007 – 6 January 2008
2008-01-06
2007-10-01
National Gallery of Art (Washington DC, USA)
10 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
2008-02-10
Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, USA)
http://www.DallasMuseumofArt.org
23 June 2008 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
2008-06-23
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2007-10-01
JMW Turner
Tate partnerships & programmes
18 August 2009 – 14 November 2010
2010-11-14
18 August 2009 – 14 November 2010
2010-11-14
2009-08-18
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-18
Sublime
Collection based display
8 February 2013 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
8 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-08
Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide, Australia)
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au
4 June 2013 – 8 September 2013
2013-09-08
2013-06-04
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
8 October 2013 – 18 December 2013
2013-12-18
2013-10-08
Toyko Metropolitan Art Museum (Toyko, Japan)
1 January 2014 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
2014-01-01
Kobe City Museum (Kobe, Japan)
2013-02-08
J.M.W. Turner: Makings of a Master
Loan-out
10 September 2014 – 20 September 2015
2015-09-20
10 September 2014 – 25 January 2015
2015-01-25
2014-09-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-09-10
Late Turner: Painting Set Free
Exhibition
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
28 October 2020 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
28 October 2020 – 12 September 2021
2021-09-12
2020-10-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2020-10-28
Turner's Modern World
Exhibition
17 October 2021 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
17 October 2021 – 6 February 2022
2022-02-06
2021-10-17
Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, USA)
http://www.kimbellart.org
27 March 2022 – 10 July 2022
2022-07-10
2022-03-27
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2021-10-17
Turner's Modern World
Loan-out
13 March 2023
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-03-13
Gallery 103
Collection based display
A Disaster at Sea
support: 1714 × 2203 mm
frame: 2190 × 2685 × 173 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 unfinished painting probably depicts a real tragedy. It may show the <i>Amphitrite</i>, which left London for New South Wales in August 1833 carrying 108 women convicted of crimes, and 12 of their children. When it ran in to difficulty near Boulogne, France, the captain refused offers of rescue. The <i>Amphitrite</i> broke up and only three people aboard survived. In 2022 another possible subject, the <i>Hibernia</i>, was identified. Leaving Liverpool in December 1832 it carried 209 emigrants seeking new prospects in Australia. It caught fire in the South Atlantic, leaving 153 dead. Reports revealed there were not enough lifeboats for all.</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>460. </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-a-disaster-at-sea-n00558" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00558</span></a>]<b> Fire at Sea</b> <i>c.</i> 1835</p>
<p>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (558)</p>
<p>Canvas, 67 1/2 × 86 3/4 (171·5 × 220·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (254, ‘1 (Fire at Sea)’ 7'3 3/4 × 5'8 1/2"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910, returned to the National Gallery 1956, and to the Tate Gallery 1968.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> New York, Chicago and Toronto 1946–7 (53, pl. 44); R.A. 1974–5 (496).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1860 (1903–12, vii, p. 246 n.); ?Thornbury 1862, i, p. 325; ?1877, p. 451; Armstrong 1902, p. 229; MacColl 1920, p. 27; Davies 1946, p. 190; Clark 1949, pp. 108–9, pl. 86; Rothenstein 1949, p. 20, colour pl. 11; Davies 1959, p. 100; Herrmann 1963, p. 32, pl. 16; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 19, 52–3; Lindsay 1966, p. 162, 179, 249 n.48; Brill 1969, p. 19, repr.; Gaunt 1971, p. 8, colour pl. 29; Herrmann 1975, pp. 43, 233, colour pl. 144; Fehl 1976, pp. 127–8, pl. 20; Storch 1978, pp. 199– 201; Wilton 1979, p. 218.</p>
<p>Despite its relatively ‘unfinished’ state this was given an inventory number immediately on entering the National Gallery in 1856, like the works exhibited in Turner's lifetime. Thornbury probably refers to this picture when he speaks of Turner ‘studying a burning ship at sunset (unfinished oil picture)’. There are three sketches of a ship on fire in the ‘Fire at Sea’ sketchbook, dated by Finberg <i>c.</i> 1834 (CCLXXXII-3, 4 and 5) and 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/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> probably also dates from about this time as is suggested by MacColl in his remarkably specific ‘painted about 1834’; it may well have reflected Turner's renewed interest in fire subjects following the burning of the Houses of Parliament in October 1834 (see Nos. 359 and 364). Ruskin suggests that the picture ‘has had its distance destroyed’ by the loss of its upper glazes through cleaning in the same way as <i>Hero and Leander</i> (No. 370 [<span>N00521</span>]). Certainly there are many small losses as a result of the cleavage between the paint layers, but Ruskin's fears seem, as usual, to have been exaggerated.</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
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults birth to death child children cloud crime and punishment crime and punishment: transportation, 18th c. death destruction disaster: wreck of ‘Amphitrite’, 1833 diseases and conditions drowned emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas England English Channel fear fire group groups history natural phenomena night people places politics and society prisoner sea seascapes and coasts shipwreck smoke society times of the day transport: water UK countries and regions UK natural features universal concepts wave weather woman