JMW Turner

Turner's watercolour sketch of Lake Constance, with boats and a distant buildings and port. Painted largely in pale blues and yellows, the study gives the impression of an early morning scene, with the kind of distinctive cloudy sky that Turner became so well known for.

• Artist JMW Turner
• Artwork Constance: Sample Study
• Image size 24.2 x 31.1 cm
• Material Watercolour on paper
• Date of work c.1841-2
• Credit Original: Watercolour on paper 24.2 x 31.1 cm ® Tate, London

Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in London; he remained a Londoner and kept a Cockney accent all his life despite dominating British landscape painting throughout the first half of the 19th century. He established a reputation in the Royal Academy, first as a topographical watercolourist and then within a few years as a painter of sublime and historical landscapes. From the mid-1790s he settled on the routine he maintained for much of his life: touring in summer and working in the studio in the winter months. He opened his own gallery and had many patrons and admirers as well as detractors. After his death a large body of his works in oil and watercolour was given to the British nation, with many on show at Tate Britain.

• Product Code S22677