Fishing Boats with Hucksters Bargaining for Fish1837–38
Fishing boats pitch on rough water under a sky of piled storm cloud, while hucksters, the dealers who bought the catch at sea, bargain with the fishermen. More about this work
About this work
Fishing boats pitch on rough water under a sky of piled storm cloud, while hucksters, the dealers who bought the catch at sea, bargain with the fishermen. Turner exhibited this large canvas at the Royal Academy in 1838, and it belongs to a long line of sea pictures in which he measured himself against the Dutch marine painters of the seventeenth century while going far beyond them in the drama of light and weather. The churning waves and light breaking through the clouds are painted with characteristic freedom.
Written by Ochre Editions.
What you’re looking at
Large marine landscape of boats on rough waves, storm clouds.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Joseph Mallord William Turner
English, 1775–1851 · Born and died in London.
Turner, a London barber’s son, entered the Royal Academy Schools at fourteen and was elected a full Academician at twenty-six. Travelling constantly in Britain and on the Continent, he filled hundreds of sketchbooks and made thousands of watercolours. His oils moved from classical landscapes in the manner of Claude towards vortices of light, steam and weather, as in The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, a fire he witnessed in 1834. He left most of his work to the nation.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1922.4472
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
