Hastings: Fish Market on the Sands, Early Morning

JMW Turner (1775 - 1851)

Hastings Museum and Art Gallery

1824

This is the largest of ten watercolour views of Hastings by Turner. It was probably intended as an engraving for W B Cooke's Marine Views but reproduction was never carried out. It shows an early morning fish sale on Hastings beach with the East Parade, Battery and Castle in the distance. In the centre is a group of fashionable women, a boy with a hoop, fishermen in their 'tanfrocks', fishwives with baskets of fish and two figures in Greek costume, one with his arm in a sling. The latter are a reference to the Greek War of Independence which had widespread support in Britain at the time.

• Medium: watercolour on paper
• Dimensions: 44.5 x 66cm
• Art Fund Grant: £31806 ( Total: £261,744)
• ArtFunded in: 2006
• Vendor: Sotheby's

Provenance

Probably commissioned for W B Cooke's 'Marine Views'; presented by the artist to his doctor, Sir Anthony Carlisle, 1824; Christie's, 1872; J & W Vokins; Christie's, 1873; Agnew's; Cornelius Vanderbilt, New York, 1915; by descent to Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt Jnr; Sotheby's, London 1953; Hammer Galleries, New York; Sotheby's, New York, 1982; Sotheby's, London, 1997; Sotheby's, London, 2006.

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