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Works Thomas Girtin and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner after (?) John Henderson

A Dismasted Boat in Dover Harbour

1795 - 1796

Primary Image: TG0951: Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), after John Henderson (1764–1843), TG0951, 1795–96, graphite and watercolour on wove paper, 14.3 × 19.6 cm, 5 ⅝ × 7 ¾ in. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, gift of Edward W. Forbes (1905.10).

Photo courtesy of Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, gift of Edward W. Forbes / Photo: President and Fellows of Harvard College

Artist's source: John Henderson (1764–1843), A Dismasted Boat in Dover Harbour, with an Anchor, (?) 1794, graphite on wove paper, 14.2 × 19.7 cm, 5 ⅝ × 7 ¾ in. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, gift of Edward W. Forbes (1905.11).

Photo courtesy of Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, gift of Edward W. Forbes / Photo: President and Fellows of Harvard College

Description
Creator(s)
Thomas Girtin (1775-1802) and (?) Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) after (?) John Henderson (1764-1843)
Title
  • A Dismasted Boat in Dover Harbour
Date
1795 - 1796
Medium and Support
Graphite and watercolour on wove paper
Dimensions
14.3 × 19.6 cm, 5 ⅝ × 7 ¾ in
Object Type
Collaborations; Monro School Copy; Work after an Amateur Artist
Subject Terms
Coasts and Shipping; Dover and Kent

Collection
Catalogue Number
TG0951
Description Source(s)
Viewed in June 2025

Provenance

Edward Waldo Forbes (1873–1969); presented to the Museum, 1905

Exhibition History

Winchester Art Association, Winchester, 1939 (catalogue untraced); Toronto, 1951, no.33 as by Joseph Mallord William Turner

About this Work

 

This view of a dismasted boat in the inner harbour at Dover, with the chalk cliffs beyond, has been attributed to Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), but given its subject matter it is a candidate to be one of the hundred or so Dover views that were sold from the collection of Dr Thomas Monro (1759–1833) at his posthumous sale in 1833, a substantial number of which have subsequently been shown to be collaborations between Girtin and Turner. Similar scenes such as Dover Harbour: The Stern of a Large Ship, and Smaller Vessels (TG1473) were copied from drawings by the amateur artist John Henderson (1764–1843), who lent Monro his ‘outlines of Shipping & Boats’, described by the diarist Joseph Farington (1747–1821) as ‘Very ingenious & careful’, ‘for this purpose’ (Farington, Diary, 1 December 1795, 30 December 1794). There is no doubt about the location of the watercolour’s subject as the same dismasted boat appears in another view of the inner harbour (TG0817), this time seen from the stern with the distinctive form of Dover Castle beyond. Moreover, the source for the watercolour also appears to have been executed by Henderson (see source image above). A pencil drawing of the same dimensions, also in the collection at Harvard, displays many of the characteristic signs and weaknesses of Henderson’s stiff draughtsmanship (see TG0797 source image) and the link is confirmed by overlaying images of the two works. The degree of congruence between the two is such that it is likely that lines visible in the watercolour were either traced or transferred from the pencil drawing and the manner in which the outline of the vessel and anchor appear to have been reinforced in a soft and richer graphite may have been part of the process.

If the watercolour’s subject and its source in a pencil drawing by John Henderson can be established with some confidence, its joint attribution to Girtin and Turner is more problematic. Although I would normally begin by discussing the pencil work, in this case the application of watercolours is so weak and so uncharacteristically overworked with few areas left untouched to act as highlights that my first thought is that the drawing is simply by Henderson himself. The formless nature of the clouds, the lack of spatial clarity in the buildings and particularly the way that the anchor and the vessel are difficult to distinguish from the background, inhabiting no coherent space, all suggest the hand of the amateur artist. The complicating issue is that the pencil work, particularly where it is most visible on the cliff face, is stronger and more varied in the touch than in the on-the-spot sketch. Elsewhere, the washes have effaced much of the pencil work, but arguably just enough remains visible to conclude that this is a Girtin pencil drawing made from a Henderson original that has been worked over in the characteristic Monro School palette by the amateur himself, and that he mastered just enough of Turner’s manner to have suggested an attribution to Girtin’s collaborator. ner

 

 

 

1795 - 1796

Dover Harbour: The Stern of a Large Ship, and Smaller Vessels

TG1473

1795 - 1796

The Inner Harbour, Dover, with the Castle Beyond

TG0817

1795 - 1796

A Boat on the Shore, near Shakespeare Cliff, Dover

TG0797

by Greg Smith

Place depicted

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