Index · Paintings

Turner's Paintings: Every Work in the Archive and Its Catalogue Record

Ordered by date. Each entry gives the accession number where one exists, the year, and the collection that holds the painting.

A steamer lies still on a dark sea at night, one sail lit white above the water. — Peace – Burial at Sea · J. M. W. Turner · Public domain · source file

The paintings listed below are the exhibited oils and the major works this archive treats in detail. Every page states where its catalogue data comes from, which is the Tate collection dataset for works in the Turner Bequest and the holding institution for everything held elsewhere.

Turner completed several hundred oils across a working life of sixty years, so this is a selection and not a catalogue raisonné. The works included here are the ones with an exhibition history, a documented record, or a clear part in how his reputation came to be formed.

Dates follow the exhibition record where one exists, because that is the date a Turner was first seen in public and the one the catalogues cite. A picture exhibited in 1839 may have been begun two years earlier, and several of the late canvases were worked on across a decade.

Two collections hold most of what is listed. Tate has the Turner Bequest, the material the painter left to the nation, which is why so many accession numbers here begin N or D. The National Gallery holds the finished oils Turner attached conditions to, including the two he required to hang beside Claude Lorrain. Works elsewhere are recorded from the institution that holds them, named in each row.

Where a work has no accession number the row shows its year instead. That is usually a picture in private hands or one whose current location is not publicly recorded, and the page says so instead of guessing.

The list is ordered by date, not by fame. Reading it downwards shows the change that matters about Turner more clearly than any single canvas does: the early pictures are built on drawn edges and brown shadow, the late ones on colour doing the work that drawing used to do.

Questions

How many paintings does this archive cover?

Thirty-eight works have their own page, each with the catalogue record from the collection that holds it. Turner painted several hundred oils across sixty years and left some thirty-nine thousand items to the nation in total, so this is a selection and not a catalogue raisonné.

Why do some rows show a year where others show an accession number?

An accession number means the holding institution publishes one, which is the case for everything in the Turner Bequest. A year in that column means no public accession reference was found, usually because the work is in private hands.

Where does the catalogue data come from?

Works in the Turner Bequest are recorded from the Tate collection dataset, released under Creative Commons Zero. Everything held elsewhere is recorded from the holding institution. Each page names its source, and no page claims a work is currently on display.

Are the reproductions free to reuse?

Turner died in 1851, so his works are in the public domain. Each plate links the specific source file it uses on Wikimedia Commons, with the artist, the title and the licence stated in the caption.