Joseph Mallord William Turner, 'Calais Pier', 1803

Calais Pier

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Not on display

About the work

Overview

A cross-channel ferry (a packet), fully laden with passengers and flying a British flag, is approaching the port of Calais. Around it, small French fishing boats (‘poissards’) head out to sea. The water is rough and dark storm clouds gather, although a shaft of sunlight breaks through to illuminate the white sail in the centre of the picture. In the lower right foreground, a small fishing boat is trying to get away to avoid being battered against the pier. The scene looks chaotic and there is a risk of collision.

Turner’s painting is based on an actual event he experienced, when he travelled from Dover to Calais in 1802 on his first trip abroad and was ‘nearly swampt‘ in a storm at sea. Although it had a mixed response when first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803, the critic John Ruskin declared it to be the first painting to show signs of ‘Turner’s colossal power’.

In-depth

Calais Pier is based upon an actual event. On 15 July 1802, Turner, aged 27, began his first trip abroad, travelling from Dover to Calais in a cross-channel ferry (a packet) of the type shown here. The weather was stormy, and Turner noted in his sketchbook: ‘Our landing at Calais. Nearly swampt.’

In the painting, a ferry (centre left), fully laden with passengers and flying a British flag, is approaching the port of Calais on the northern French coast. Around it, small French fishing boats head out to the open sea. In his title, Turner refers to these fishing boats as ‘French poissards,’ which appears to be his own idiosyncratic adaptation of the French word poissarde (‘fishwife’). The sea is rough and dark storm clouds gather, although a shaft of sunlight breaks through to illuminate the white sail in the centre of the picture. The entire scene looks chaotic and there is a risk of a collision. In the lower right foreground, a small fishing boat is trying to get away to avoid being battered against the pier.

Full of incident and detail, this is one of Turner’s largest and most complex maritime paintings. Its dramatic storm scene was also a significant milestone in the development of British maritime painting. The critic John Ruskin, an early supporter of Turner, described it as ‘the richest, wildest and most difficult composition'. The painting also includes one of Turner’s most ambitious figure groups, as he shows the French fishermen attempting to cast off while agitated women look on from the windswept pier. The number and variety of animated figures combines the activity of Dutch genre painting with an almost comic element that recalls Hogarth – for instance, a departing sailor holds up a flagon to be filled by a woman holding a bottle. Dutch maritime painting was an important precedent for Turner, and he may have been stimulated to paint Calais Pier when, towards the end of his trip, he saw (and sketched) Jacob van Ruisdael’s A Storm at Sea off the Dykes of Holland (1670) in the Louvre.

When exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803, Calais Pier met with a mixed reception that marked the beginning of the critical disapproval of Turner’s work that would continue until his death. Criticism of the picture focused especially on his method of painting the foreground and the sea. Viewers more accustomed to the smooth translucent glazes of traditional marine paintings were particularly resistant to Turner’s visible brushwork and his impasto (thickly applied paint), often laid on with a palette knife. You can see this clearly in the white foam of the waves. Although acknowledging Turner’s precocious talent, critics compared his use of paint to blots, batter, pea soup, smoke, a mix of soap and chalk, and the veins on a marble slab. The painting was unsold and remained in Turner’s possession.

Want to find out more?

Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this painting.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Calais Pier, with French Poissards preparing for Sea: an English Packet arriving
Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
Artist dates: 1775 - 1851
Date made: 1803
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 172 × 240 cm
Acquisition credit: Turner Bequest, 1856
Inventory number: NG472
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Previous owners: Joseph Mallord William Turner
Frame: 19th-century English Frame (original frame)

Provenance

Turner Bequest 1856.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Judy Egerton, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings’, London 2000; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2013

Turner and the Sea

National Maritime Museum

21 November 2013 - 21 April 2014
2022

JWM Turner, curated by Larry Achiampong

Turner Contemporary

11 March 2022 - 19 June 2022

Bibliography

1851

J. Ruskin, Pre-Raphaelitism, London 1851
1857

J. Ruskin, Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House, 1856, London 1857
1857

R.N. Wornum, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, with Biographical Notices of the Painters: British School, London 1857
1903

J. Ruskin, Modern Painters, eds E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, The Works of John Ruskin, 39 vols, London 1903
1908

W.G. Rawlinson, The Engraved Works of J.M.W. Turner, 2 vols, London 1908
1928

W.T. Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England 1700-1799, London 1928
1939

A.J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., Oxford 1939
1946

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, London 1946
1946

M. Davies, Paintings and Drawings on the Backs of National Gallery Pictures, London 1946
1959

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: British School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1959
1966

L. Gowing, Turner: Imagination and Reality, New York 1966
1969

J. Gage, Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth, London 1969
1969

D. Hirsch, The World of Turner, New York 1969
1973

F.A. Whiting, 'Art and Acrimony', Apollo, XCVIII, 1973, pp. 43-6
1974

M. Butlin, A. Wilton and J. Gage, Turner, 1775-1851 (exh. cat. Tate Galler and Royal Academy of Arts of Art, 16 November 1974 - 2 March 1975), London 1974
1978

A. Macintyre and K. Garlick (eds), The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. 5, New Haven 1978-1984
1981

W. Gaunt, Turner, Oxford 1981
1981

A.G.H. Bachrach, 'Turner, Ruisdael and the Dutch', Turner Studies, I/1, 1981, pp. 19-30
1982

M. Butlin and E. Joll, L'opera completa di Turner 1793-1829, Milan 1982
1982

A. Wilton, Turner Abroad:france, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, London 1982
1984

M. Butlin and E. Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., New Haven 1984
1987

J. Gage, J.M.W. Turner: 'A Wonderful Range of Mind', New Haven 1987
1987

A. Wilton, Turner in his Time, London 1987
1990

E. Shanes, Turner's Human Landscape, London 1990
1990

E. Shanes, Turner: The Masterworks, London 1990
1994

F.G.H. Bachrach, Turner's Holland (exh. cat. Tate Gallery, 22 July - 2 October 1994), London 1994
1997

A. Bailey, Standing in the Sun: A Life of J.M.W. Turner, London 1997
1997

J. Hamilton, Turner: A Life, London 1997
1998

J. Egerton, The British School, London 1998
2000

Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British Paintings, revised edn, London 2000
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

Frame

Known as a Morland frame, this style of nineteenth-century English frame is named after the artist George Morland (1763–1804). Constructed from pinewood with a hollow profile, it is adorned along the top with reeding, bundled by ribbons that cross at the centre and cover the mitred corners. A decorative shell ornament is set in the hollow. The back edge is decorated with a lamb’s-tongue motif, while the sight edge features a water-leaf design, so-named for the wave-like movement at the edges of the leaves.

The frame’s decoration, made from composition, has since been regilded, probably more than once. This particular frame was made for Turner’s Calais Pier and was most likely his choice, as he also used a Morland frame for Dolbadarn Castle, his Diploma Work, gifted to the Royal Academy following his election as an Academician in 1802.

George Morland had a trusted framemaker, Thomas Merle (about 1753–1819), a skilled carver and gilder credited with the creation of the Morland frame. Due to its popularity, the frame design was reproduced in various workshops and used by numerous artists. Turner’s own framer was Robert Archer, who operated a workshop on High Street in Oxford.

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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