JMW Turner

Turner's French coastal landscape is of a sunset sky, a town in the stillness of the night and a vivid red boat on the still water.

• Artist JMW Turner
• Artwork Le Havre: Tour de Francois 1er
• Image size 14 x 19.2 cm
• Material Watercolour on paper
• Date of work c.1832
• Credit Original: Watercolour on paper 14 x 19.2 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.