Sail Boats
- Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Date: c.1832
- Medium: Graphite on paper
- Dimensions: support: 206 x 86 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “Sail Boats” by Joseph Mallord William Turner. Painted around 1832, it’s a graphite drawing on a small sheet of paper measuring just over 20 cm by 9 cm. Turner created it while sketching scenes from the coast near Gravesend and Margate, a period when he was honing his skill in capturing light on water. The sketch shows a few sail‑boats gliding across a calm sea under a sky speckled with thin clouds. The delicate graphite lines convey both the sturdy hulls of the boats and the gentle movement of the waves, while the shading hints at the shifting play of light on the water’s surface. Turner’s early work already shows his fascination with atmosphere and weather, themes that would dominate his later masterpieces. This drawing was accepted as part of the Turner Bequest in 1856, and today it hangs in Tate Britain, where visitors can appreciate the quiet intensity of this early study of sea and sky.
See it in person
Sail Boats is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
