Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

Beach Scene with boats and figures

Auction Closed

January 26, 04:31 PM GMT

Estimate

15,000 - 20,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property of a gentleman

Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

London 1775 - 1851

Beach Scene with boats and figures

Watercolor on buff-colored paper

137 by 187 mm; 5⅜ by 7⅜ in.

Mrs Sophia Caroline Booth (1798-1875), the artist’s landlady,
thence by descent to her son, Daniel John Pound;
Lawrence W. Hodson, Compton Hall, by July 1884,
thence by descent until,
sale, London, Sotheby’s, 30 November 1978, part of lot 97;
where acquired by Richard Feigen (1930-2021),
with R.L. Feigen & Co., New York;
Private Collection, United Kingdom

M. Butlin, A Collection of Sketches by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., Tokyo, New York and Denver, exhibition catalogues;
I. Warrell, Turner’s Sketchbooks, London 2014, p. 233;
J. Yarker, ‘The Last Turner Sketchbook’ (an essay to accompany an online exhibition, 21 May 2020)

Tokyo, Mitsukoshi Gallery, Nihombashi, Turner, 1979-80, no. 9;
New York, Castelli-Feigen-Corcoran, Turner: Watercolours and Drawings, 1981, no. 2;
Denver, Gallery 609, East Speer Boulevard, J.M.W. Turner. Watercolours and Drawings, 1981, no. 9

The sense of spontaneity and feeling of urgency within this sketch, painted by Turner with staccato strokes of brushes loaded with pure color, seems to offer the present day viewer an opportunity to peer inside the mind of this revolutionary painter.

Dating to the early 1840s, the sheet almost certainly depicts a beach within the vicinity of Margate, the fashionable seaside resort where, during these years, Turner often stayed with his lover and, from 1846, his London house-keeper, Mrs Sophia Booth.

Recent research, carried out by Ian Warrell, has indicated that this sheet was probably once owned by Mrs Booth, who came into possession of many works by Turner over the time she knew him. Her estate was inherited by her son, Daniel John Pound, who appears to have sold this watercolor, together with a parcel of related works, to Laurence Hodson, a successful brewer from Wolverhampton, England. By the middle of the 1880s Hodson had collected nearly fifty watercolors, chalk drawings and pencil studies by Turner from at least three dismembered sketchbooks. He mounted them into an album which, in 1978, was sold at Sotheby’s by one of his descendants. The album was acquired by the celebrated American art dealer Richard Feigen and its contents dispersed.

We are grateful to Ian Warrell for his help when cataloguing this work.