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’.
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.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
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.
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