Fishermen at Sea

Painting by J. M. W. Turner

Fishermen at Sea, 1796, the first oil painting by J. M. W. Turner to be exhibited at the Royal Academy, in 1796

Fishermen at Sea, sometimes known as the Cholmeley Sea Piece, is an early oil painting by English artist J. M. W. Turner. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1796 and has been owned by the Tate Gallery since 1972. It was long considered the first oil painting by Turner to be exhibited at the Royal Academy.[a] In 2024 the earlier The Rising Squall, Hot Wells was rediscovered and is an oil painting rather than a watercolour as previously believed. It was praised by contemporary critics and burnished Turner's reputation, both as an oil painter and as a painter of maritime scenes.[1]

## Description

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The work measures 36 by 48.125 inches (91.44 cm × 122.24 cm) and is in oils. Fisherman at Sea depicts a moonlit view of fishermen on rough seas near the Isle of Wight, and is a work of marine art. It presents the fragility of human life, represented by the small boat with its flickering lamp, and the sublime power of nature, represented by the dark clouded sky, the wide sea, and the threatening rocks in the background. The cold light of the Moon at night contrasts with the warmer glow of the fishermen's lantern.[2] The chalk formations on the left of the work were traditionally thought to be the Needles on the western tip of the island; however, this has been contested, with some scholars suggesting that the chalk cliffs are instead the ones at the nearby Freshwater Bay.[3]

The work shows strong influence from the work of artists such as Claude Joseph Vernet, Philip James de Loutherbourg, and the intimate nocturnal scenes of Joseph Wright of Derby, especially in its handling of light and shadow.[3]

## Creation and history

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Turner enrolled as a student at the Royal Academy of Arts at the age of 15. He began as primarily a watercolour painter in the early 1790s. His first public work was Lambeth Palace which he displayed at the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1790. He likely experimented with oil painting privately while in the Academy's schools, but if so, these oil paintings were not publicly shown and were lost.[1] In general, oil paintings were considered more prestigious in the era, and Turner recognized he would have to create them if he was to gain the recognition he desired;[3] Fishermen would be his first major oil painting. Turner had also done maritime scenes in watercolour during the early 1790s, showing an early interest in them. He traveled to the Isle of Wight in 1795 and took a sketchbook with him; the drawings and watercolours made then may have been used as reference material when composing Fishermen at Sea.[3] Turner had just turned twenty-one years old before the 1796 Royal Academy exhibition where Fishermen was unveiled to the public.[3]

The two paintings Fishermen at Sea and Moonlight, a Study at Millbank was sold together to an obscure person called "General Stewart" for £10 (adjusting for inflation, around £1300-1400 in 2022 currency).[3] The painting was acquired by Sir Henry Charles Englefield; after his death in 1822, it was sold at Christie's on 8 March 1823, as View of the Needles, with the effect of Moon and Fire Light. It was bought by Englefield's nephew Francis Cholmeley, and it remained in the Cholmeley family for nearly 150 years, displayed at Brandsby Hall, and it became known as the Cholmeley Sea Piece. It was loaned regularly to the Tate Gallery from 1931, and sold to the Tate Gallery in 1972 by Francis William Alfred Fairfax-Cholmeley, with finance from the Beatrice Lizzie Benson Fund.

## Similar works

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Fishermen strengthened Turner's reputation. Possibly due to the Napoleonic Wars and the romantic importance of the sea and the British Navy during them, marine art was popular in Britain in the decades following Fishermen; Turner produced a number of similar works of marine art that sold for good prices. Years later, Turner made a similar watercolour study, Moonlight at Sea (c. 1818), for his Liber Studiorum, although the engraved plate was not published.[3] Other Turner pieces that play with the interaction of moonlight and the sea include Shields, on the River Tyne (1823), Temple of Poseidon at Sunion, Cape Colonna (c. 1834), Disaster at Sea (c. 1833-35), and Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight (1835).[3] Turner would revisit marine art with new vigor in the 1830s and onward; in the 1840s, seascapes would account for three-quarters of Turner's overall output.[4]

## Analysis

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The contemporary journalist Anthony Pasquin (John Williams) gave a recommendation for the piece, writing that the painting "is one of the greatest proofs of an original mind, in the present pictorial display: the boats are buoyant and swim well, and the undulation of the element is admirably deceiving."[1] Art historian Andrew Wilton wrote in 1987 that the painting "is a summary of all that had been said about the sea by the artists of the 18th century."[1]

## See also

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* List of paintings by J. M. W. Turner

## Notes

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1. ^ Turner exhibited watercolour paintings at the Royal Academy exhibitions of 1790-1795, as well as 10 other watercolours at the 1796 exhibition; Fisherman was specifically the first oil painting.[1]

## References

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1. ^ a b c d e Wilton, Andrew (1987). Turner in his time (Hardcover ed.). London: Thames & Hudson. p. 31; 34; 46. ISBN 978-0-500-23830-1.
2. ^ Butlin, Martin; Joll, Evelyn (1984). The paintings of J.M.W. Turner (Rev. ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-03276-5.
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Warrell, Ian, ed. (2008) [2007]. J.M.W. Turner (American tour ed.). Tate Publishing. pp. 14, 28.
4. ^ Concannon, Amy (2014). "Horizons: Sea and Sky". In Brown, David Blayney; Smiles, Sam (eds.). J.M.W. Turner: Painting Set Free. Getty Publications. p. 192\. ISBN 978-1-60606-427-6.

## External links

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* Joseph Mallord William Turner, Fishermen at Sea, exhibited 1796, Tate Gallery
* Joseph Mallord William Turner, Moonlight at Sea (The Needles), c. 1818, Tate Gallery
* Fishermen at Sea, Google Cultural Institute

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J. M. W. Turner

Paintings|

* Lambeth Palace (1790)
* The Rising Squall (1792)
* Interior of a Romanesque Church (c. 1795–1800)
* Landscape with Windmill and Rainbow (c. 1795–1800)
* Diana and Callisto (c. 1796)
* Fishermen at Sea (1796)
* Interior of a Gothic Church (c. 1797)
* Limekiln at Coalbrookdale (c. 1797)
* Moonlight, a Study at Millbank (1797)
* Dunstanburgh Castle (1798)
* Aeneas and the Sibyl, Lake Avernus (c. 1798)
* Buttermere Lake (1798)
* Caernarvon Castle (c. 1798)
* Morning amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland (1798)
* Shipping by a Breakwater (1798)
* Tivoli and the Roman Campagna (c. 1798)
* View of a Town (c. 1798)
* Dolbadarn Castle (1798–1799)
* Self-Portrait (c. 1799)
* View in Wales (c. 1799–1800)
* A Beech Wood with Gypsies round a Campfire (c. 1800)
* A Beech Wood with Gypsies Seated in the Distance (c. 1800)
* Landscape with Lake and Fallen Tree (c. 1800)
* View on Clapham Common (c. 1800–1805)
* The Fifth Plague of Egypt (1800)
* Dutch Boats in a Gale (1801)
* Fishermen Upon a Lee-Shore in Squally Weather (1802)
* The Tenth Plague of Egypt (1802)
* Ben Lomond Mountains, Scotland (1802)
* Jason (1802)
* Ships Bearing Up for Anchorage (1802)
* Bonneville, Savoy (1803)
* Calais Pier (1803)
* The Festival of the Opening of the Vintage at Mâcon (1803)
* The Destruction of Sodom (1805)
* The Deluge (1805)
* The Shipwreck (1805)
* Windsor Castle from the Thames (1805)
* Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen (1806)
* The Thames at Weybridge (1806)
* Walton Bridges (1806)
* Cliveden on Thames (1807)
* A Country Blacksmith (1807)
* Linlithgow Palace (1807)
* Sun Rising through Vapour (1807)
* Two Captured Danish Ships Entering Portsmouth Harbour (1807)
* The Junction of the Thames and the Medway (1807)
* The Forest of Bere (1808)
* Pope's Villa at Twickenham (1808)
* Margate (1808)
* Sheerness as Seen from the Nore (1808)
* The Unpaid Bill (1808)
* View of Richmond Hill and Bridge (1808)
* Fishing Upon the Blythe Sand (1809)
* The Garreteer's Petition (1809)
* London from Greenwich Park (1809)
* Ploughing Up Turnips (1809)
* The Trout Stream (1809)
* Sun Setting through Vapour (1809)
* The Fish Market at Hastings Beach (1810)
* High Street, Oxford (1810)
* Apollo and Python (1811)
* Somer Hill, Tonbridge (1811)
* Saltash with the Water Ferry (1811)
* Hulks on the Tamar (1811)
* Teignmouth (1812)
* Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (1812)
* Frosty Morning (1813)
* Dido and Aeneas (1814)
* Dido building Carthage (1815)
* Crossing the Brook (1815)
* The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire (1817)
* Raby Castle (1817)
* Dort or Dordrecht (1818)
* The Field of Waterloo (1818)
* Richmond Hill (1819)
* Entrance of the Meuse (1819)
* Rome, from the Vatican (1820)
* George IV at St Giles's, Edinburgh (1822)
* The Battle of Trafalgar (1822)
* The Bay of Baiae (1823)
* The Harbour of Dieppe (1825)
* Cologne (1826)
* Forum Romanum (1826)
* Mortlake Terrace (1826)
* Port Ruysdael (1826)
* Rembrandt's Daughter (1827)
* The Chain Pier, Brighton (1828)
* Chichester Canal (1828)
* East Cowes Castle (1828)
* Regulus (1828)
* View of Orvieto (1828)
* Vision of Medea (1828)
* The Banks of the Loire (1829)
* The Loretto Necklace (1829)
* Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829)
* The Evening Star (1830)
* Funeral of Sir Thomas Lawrence (1830)
* Pilate Washing his Hands (1830)
* Caligula's Palace and Bridge (1831)
* Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple (1832)
* Childe Harold's Pilgrimage - Italy (1832)
* The Prince of Orange Landing at Torbay (1832)
* Staffa, Fingal's Cave (1832)
* The Fountain of Indolence (1834)
* The Golden Bough (1834)
* Venice: The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore (1834)
* St Michael's Mount, Cornwall (1834)
* The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons (1835)
* Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight (1835)
* Line Fishing, Off Hastings (1835)
* Rome, From Mount Aventine (1835)
* Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute (c. 1835)
* Juliet and her Nurse (1836)
* The Fighting Temeraire (1838)
* Fishing Boats with Hucksters Bargaining for Fish (1838)
* Cicero at His Villa at Tusculum (1839)
* Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino (1839)
* The Slave Ship (1840)
* Neapolitan Fisher Girls Surprised Bathing by Moonlight (1840)
* Venice, the Bridge of Sighs (1840)
* Venice from the Giudecca (1840)
* Schloss Rosenau (1841)
* Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842)
* The Dogana, San Giorgio, Citella, from the Steps of the Europa (1842)
* The Blue Rigi (1842)
* The Red Rigi (1842)
* Peace – Burial at Sea (1842)
* War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet (1842)
* Light and Colour (1843)
* Approach to Venice (1844)
* Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844)
* Sunrise with Sea Monsters (1845)
* Norham Castle, Sunrise (c. 1845)
* Seascape: Folkestone (c. 1845)
* Whalers (c. 1845)
* Queen Mab's Cave (1846)
* The Hero of a Hundred Fights (1847)
* The Wreck Buoy (1849)
* Mercury Sent to Admonish Aeneas (1850)
* The Departure of the Fleet (1850)
* The Beacon Light (unknown)

Prints|

* Liber Studiorum (1807–1819)

Museums|

* Sandycombe Lodge

Related|

* The Painter (2011 play)
* Mr. Turner (2014 film)
* Thomas Price Turner
* Turner Prize
* Turner Contemporary

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