JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A.

(1775-1851)

The Loss of an East Indiaman

c.1818

watercolour on paper

28 x 39.5cm

P.902

Painted c.1818 and originally exhibited in 1819 as Loss of a Man of War. This was corrected when shown at Leeds in 1839 although it underwent several changes of title later (see below).

Eric Shanes has shown convincingly that this disaster was based on the tragedy of the Halsewell, a merchantman, which sank on 6 January 1786. Only 74 of the 240 people on board survived, the ship finally breaking up on the rocks off Seacombe between Peverel Point and St Alban’s Head on the Isle of Purbeck. There were many accounts of the disaster which continued to appear until at least 1810 so that Turner would certainly have been aware of them. He actually referred to the sinking in an unpublished poem he wrote 1811-13 to accompany the letterpress to Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast. It is also likely that Turner knew Robert Smirke’s painting The Halsewell, East Indiaman or the aquatint after it by Robert Pollard published in 1786, as he and Smirke were well acquainted. But Turner has infused his version with such a sense of terror, danger, catastrophic wreckage and imminent loss of life that it bears little relation to Smirke’s despite some similarities – the broken mizzenmast for example.

There is a 'Beginning' for the watercolour in the Turner Bequest (CXCVI N), watermarked 1816 and inscribed: 'Beginning for Dear Fawkes of Farnley'. This surely means that Turner came across it after Fawke’s death in 1825 and inscribed it in a more affectionate manner than he would have done if Fawkes had still been alive and liable to read it.

Eric Shanes, who curated the 1997 exhibition, believes that this was intended as a pendant to A First Rate Taking in Stores, (P.99); if so, Turner must have painted it between November 1818 and April 1819 when the Grosvenor Place exhibition opened. Indeed Shanes argues that the Indiaman may even have been started while the First Rate was drying and cites the predominant yellow-ochre colour in both as support for this. They are the same size and are both 'seapieces' so that it is not surprising that they were hung together both in 1819 and 1839. But despite Shanes’s suggestion that they fit in with the 'War' and 'Peace' contrast between pairs of pictures which was much in Turner’s mind from 1810-20, the subjects seem too unrelated, if this followed the 'First Rate', to make the pendant theory wholly convincing. However, an alternative explanation seems possible, bearing in mind the 1816 watermark on the 'Beginning' for this watercolour: why should it not have been painted before the 'First Rate' and then acquired by Fawkes? As Fawkes then believed it to depict the loss of a Man of War, he may, while looking at it, have found it difficult to grasp the size of the ship because only part of Turner’s sinking vessel is visible in the watercolour yet it makes the ship seem as big as an ocean liner. So one can understand his request to Turner to 'make me a drawing of the ordinary dimensions that will give some idea of the size of a man of war' (compiler’s italics). Indeed, perhaps the word 'ordinary' extended to the dimensions of the ship as well as to the drawing since he found those of the ‘Indiaman’ far from ordinary.

PROVENANCE: Painted for Walter Fawkes c.1818; by descent to Major Le G.G.W. Horton Fawkes; Fawkes sale Christie’s 2 July 1937, no.43 as Shipwreck of Man-o’-War’ bought in; sold to Agnew’s as The Shipwreck, May 1938; bought by G. Mitchell, February 1943; sold for him by Agnew’s as Foundering of a Ship of the Line, February 1956 to Mrs Christopher; bought back from her by Agnew’s June 1973 as The Wreck of the Transport Ship; sold to Professor and Mrs Lipton November 1973; their sale Sotheby’s 17 November 1997, no.108 bought Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd for Gallery, purchased with the assistance of The Heritage Lottery Fund, The National Art Collections Fund and the V&A/M.G.C. Purchase Grant Fund.

EXHIBITIONS: 45 Grosvenor Place, Walter Fawkes’s London House, 1819 no.22; Music Hall, Leeds, 1839, no.15; 65^th Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Pencil Drawings, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd, 1938, no.148 as The Foundering of a Ship of the Line; Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810-1842, London, Tate Gallery and Southampton, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1997 no.2; Turner The Great Watercolours, London, Royal Academy, 2000-1, no.48.

REFERENCES: Illustrated London News, 12 March 1938, p.452, fig 2, as The Foundering of a ship of the Line; C.F. Bell, The Exhibited Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., 1901, p.169; Sir W. Armstrong, Turner, 1902, p.277 as ‘a damaged drawing that has been restored’; A.J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., 1961, pp.480,502, nos.231,488; A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, 1979, pp.104,357 no.500, as Loss of a Man–of-War; ibid., Turner and the Sublime, 1980, p.147 under no.59 the ‘Beginning’ for this watercolour; E. Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810-1842, 1997, pp.33-35, repr. p.35; E. Shanes et al. Turner The Great Watercolours, 2000, p.135, repr. p.134; E. Shanes, ‘Turner and the creation of his First Rate in a few hours A kind of frenzy ?’, Apollo, March 2001, pp.13-15, illus. no.3.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.

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