Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth
- Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Date: exhibited 1842
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 914 x 1219 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth” by Joseph Mallord William Turner. Painted in 1842 and exhibited the same year, it’s one of Turner’s most daring works. The scene shows a steam‑boat braving a blizzard, its black fumes swallowed by the swirling vortex of snow and sea. Turner wanted the viewer to feel the roar of wind and the relentless push of the waves, so he reportedly had sailors lash him to the mast for four hours to record the experience up close.
Turner’s aim was not to create a tidy, easily read picture; critics at the time dismissed it as “soapsuds and whitewash.” His reply was simple: “I did not paint it to be understood, but to show what such a scene was like.” The painting’s raw, gestural brushwork and dramatic lighting capture the ferocity of nature against the industrial machine, a stark visual dialogue between progress and the wild.
Created with oil on canvas, the work now sits in the Turner Bequest collection, transferred to the Tate Gallery in 1856. It remains a striking reminder of Turner’s commitment to depicting the sublime power of the sea and weather in all their fury.
See it in person
Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth 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.
