Margate

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Artist: J. M. W. Turner (British, 1775–1851)
Medium: Watercolor and scraping out on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Size: Sheet: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches (15.6 x 23.5 cm)
Museum: Yale Center for British Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Throughout his career, Turner’s involvement with print provided dependable income as well as the scope to experiment with new pictorial approaches. This view shows Margate, the seaside town on the north coast of Kent that Turner returned to throughout his life. It was produced as a design for William Bernard Cooke’s lavish publication Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England (1814–26).

The modest scale of the drawing belies the richness of its symbolic content. Most important is the contrast between the sweeping modern terraces that line the harbor and the scene of men hauling in a shipwreck in front of a heavily laden merchant ship. The former reflects the town’s role as a resort for leisured middle-class visitors; the latter, both the trade that supplies their comfortable lives and the great risks taken by the sailors and shoremen on whom they depend.

Text: Yale Center for British Art.