Squally Weather

J. M. W. Turner, between 1840 and 1845

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Artist: J. M. W. Turner (British, 1775–1851)
Medium: Oil on paper, laid on canvas
Size: 12 x 18 inches (30.5 x 45.7 cm)
Museum: Yale Center for British Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

In later life, J. M.W. Turner spent much of the year living incognito in Chelsea, on the outskirts of London, with Sophia Booth, his housekeeper and mistress. Turner had met the widowed Mrs. Booth in Margate and adopted the pseudonym of Captain Booth to preserve his anonymity, passing himself off as a retired seaman. Though ailing physically, he traveled to Switzerland most summers until 1845 and spent a great deal of time in Margate studying the sea.

After Turner’s death, a cache of oil on paper studies of the sea was found in his Chelsea studio, of which this is a good example. The exact status of these small studies is contested, but most of them are uncharacteristically devoid of human narrative and are instead pure studies of the power of nature achieved with an almost monochrome palette.

Text: Yale Center for British Art.