Seascape: Folkestone

Seascape: Folkestone
	William Turner , 1845
	Oil on canvas
	88.3 x 117.5 cm
	Private collection Link to the picture; (please note copyrights )

Seascape: Folkestone is a painting by William Turner that was created around 1845. Shown is a hazy morning in glistening sunlight on the coast at Folkestone .

The painting sold for $ 10,023,200 at Sotheby’s in New York on July 6, 1984, the highest price ever paid for a Turner painting, ahead of Juliet and Her Nurse .

The picture was one of the last and most expensive works in the collection of the British art historian Kenneth Clark , which was auctioned off by the heirs after his death. Clark had acquired the picture in 1951 from DJ Moltene, a grandson of the ship owner Sir Donald Currie (1903-1983). Currie was one of Turner's most reliable and important patrons and a collector of his paintings and watercolors.

A sketchbook from Turner from 1845 has survived, in which he recorded impressions of the coastal landscape of Folkestone in 24 watercolor sketches, and which is now kept in the Tate Gallery . Commenting on these sketches, David Hockney says, “I don't think Turner was interested in scenic topography. He did not use any mechanical aids [...] to construct a landscape. That means he could look at the world in any way he wanted. He was more interested in atmosphere - a wonderful hazy morning with its sunlight and shadows. ”Hockney's remark -“ a wonderful hazy morning with its sunlight and shadows ”- is an apt description of Seascape: Folkestone .

Web links

Turner Painting to Be Auctioned The New York Times. March 14, 1984.
RW Apple: Auctions. Turner brings $ 10 million. The New York Times. July 6, 1984.
Getty's Turner Seascape Is Making Waves: Art: The sale by a British college has generated a debate in art circles about the wisdom of allowing such masterpieces to leave the country . Los Angeles Times. February 24, 1993.

Notes and individual references

↑ JMW Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolors, accessed on August 9, 2015
↑ I don't think that Turner was interested in the topographical landscape. He was not interested in using any mechanical devices ... to construct the landscape. So this meant he could look at the world in any kind of way. He was more interested in atmosphere - in a beautiful misty morning with its sunlight and shadows . Quoted from Hockney on Turner Watercolors . Exhib. Catalog. Tate Britain, London 2007. p. 11.

[1] JMW Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolors, accessed on August 9, 2015

[2] I don't think that Turner was interested in the topographical landscape. He was not interested in using any mechanical devices ... to construct the landscape. So this meant he could look at the world in any kind of way. He was more interested in atmosphere - in a beautiful misty morning with its sunlight and shadows . Quoted from Hockney on Turner Watercolors . Exhib. Catalog. Tate Britain, London 2007. p. 11.