Art Collections Online
Off Margate
TURNER, Joseph Mallord William (1775 - 1851)
Media: oil on canvas
Size: 30 x 46.0 cm
Acquired: 1952; Bequest; Gwendoline Davies
Accession Number: NMW A 5094
Collection: The Davies Sisters Collection
This painting was dismissed as an authentic work by Turner in 1956 and again in the 1960s. The 1977 Turner catalogue called it ‘a deliberate attempt to imitate Turner’s style’. However recent technical examination has shown that the painting contains the pigments Turner used - colbalt blue, lead white, mars brown/yellow and vermilion. The painting is perhaps unresolved, but is consistent in appearance with Turner’s small-scale oil paintings.
Turner found great inspiration in the Kent coastline and he was a regular visitor to Margate from the 1820s, attracted by the quality of the light. He commented that ‘...the skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe’.
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