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We hover over a flax-yellow body of water lined with ships to our left and right, which are silhouetted against a moonlit, cloud-veiled sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon comes about a third of the way up the composition. The moon hangs to our left of center in the sky, its light reflecting on the clouds in a bright, hourglass shape to create a tunnel-like effect. The sea below turns from a gold color close to us to pale blue along the horizon. To our left, one ship with gray sails is cut off by the edge of the canvas and another, also with gray sails, is situated farther from us. A small, dark rowboat with two passengers moves between them. Light from the windows in buildings along the distant horizon to our left reflect in the water, and another building, a factory, spouts white flame from its chimney. More dark ships line the waterway to our right, their spiky masts black against the sky. Three flames, one orange between two pale yellow fires, flare in the darkness in front of the ship closest to us. The forms of men shoveling coal, crates, and barges are dark silhouettes against the firelight and smoke. More rowboats float among the boats in the distance. Near the lower right corner of the canvas, a broad, flat fragment of wood floats close to us. The hot orange and black on the right side of the painting contrasts with the silvery gray, light blue, and white that fills much of the rest of the composition. The painting was created with thick, blended brushstrokes throughout, giving the scene a hazy look. The texture of some of the brushstrokes is especially noticeable, as where the moon casts white light onto the water and in the clouds. The artist signed a buoy floating to our left with his initials, “JMWT.”

Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 57

Joseph Mallord William Turner excelled at capturing the beauty and mysteries of light. Cool, white moonlight contrasts with warm, yellow and orange firelight. Shimmering reflections animate the water’s still surface.

The setting is the port of Newcastle, England, where coal from inland mines is being loaded onto ships. Coal was used to fuel the factories, mills, railroads, steamships, and other great machines that were transforming Britain during the Industrial Revolution. The dark smoke rising on the right may refer to the increasing air pollution.

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Here Turner brings the great force of his romantic genius to a common scene of working–class men at hard labor. Although the subject of the painting is rooted in the grim realities of the industrial revolution, in Turner's hands it transcends the specifics of time and place and becomes an image of startling visual poetry.

An almost palpable flood of moonlight breaks through the clouds in a great vault that spans the banks of the channel and illuminates the sky and the water. The heavy impasto of the moon's reflection on the unbroken expanse of water rivals the radiance of the sky, where gradations of light create a powerful, swirling vortex.

To the right, the keelmen and the dark, flat–bottomed keels that carried the coal from Northumberland and Durham down the River Tyne are silhouetted against the orange and white flames from the torches, as the coal is transferred to the sailing ships. To the left, square riggers wait to sail out on the morning tide. Behind these ships Turner suggested the distant cluster of factories and ships with touches of gray paint and a few thin lines. Through the shadowy atmosphere ships' riggings, keels and keelmen, fiery torches, and reflections on the water merge into a richly textured surface pattern.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, which is available as a free PDF.

Object Data

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 92.3 x 122.8 cm (36 5/16 x 48 3/8 in.)

framed: 127.6 x 158.1 x 14 cm (50 1/4 x 62 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Widener Collection

Accession Number

1942.9.86

Artists / Makers

Joseph Mallord William Turner (painter) British, 1775 - 1851

Image Use

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Detail Information

Inscription

lower left on buoy: JMWT

Provenance

Painted for Henry McConnel [1801-1871], The Polygon, Ardwick, Manchester; sold 1849 to John Naylor, Leighton Hall, Liverpool;[1] passed to his wife; purchased 1910 through (Dyer and Sons) by (Thos. Agnew & Sons, London); re-entered April 1910 in Agnew's stock in joint ownership with (Arthur J. Sulley & Co., London); purchased 13 June 1910 from (Arthur J. Sulley & Co., London) by Peter A.B. Widener, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania; inheritance from estate of Peter A. B. Widener by gift through power of appointment of Joseph E. Widener, Elkins Park.

[1] This work was painted as a companion to NGA 1942.9.85 (Venice: The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore), exhibited the previous year at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and also owned by McConnel. He was obliged to sell the pictures at a time of business adversity, but regretted selling his Turners to John Naylor, and in 1861 tried, unsuccessfully, to buy at least one of them back. Letter from McConnel to John Naylor, 28 May 1861 (quoted in Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, 2 vols., rev. ed., New Haven: 1984: I:205).

Associated Names

Agnew & Sons, Ltd., Thomas
Dyer and Sons
McConnel, Henry
Naylor, John
Naylor, John, Mrs.
Sulley & Co., Arthur J.
Widener, Joseph E.
Widener, Peter Arrell Brown

Exhibition History

1835: Modern Artists, Royal Manchester Institution, 1835, no. 260.

1835: Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1835, no. 24.

1854: Pictures, Exhibited at a Soirée, Given by John Buck Lloyd, Esquire, Mayor of Liverpool, Town Hall, Liverpool, 23 September 1854, no. 21.

1887: Works by the Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1887, no. 14.

1914: Paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. and J.M.W. Turner, R.A., M. Knoedler & Co., Inc., New York, 1914, no. 36.

1974: Turner 1775-1851, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1974-1975, no. 513, color repro.

1983: J.M.W. Turner, Grand Palais, Paris, 1983-1984, no. 61, color repro.

1986: Turner, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 1986, no. 33, color repro.

1996: Turner, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1996, no. 18, repro.

1997: The Victorians: British Painting in the Reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1997, no. 1, color repro., as Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Night.

2003: Turner and Venice, Tate Britain, London; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 2003-2004, no. 38, repro.

2003: Turner: The Late Seascapes, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; Manchester Art Gallery; The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, 2003-2004, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 23, repro. (shown only in Williamstown).

2007: J.M.W. Turner, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Dallas Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2007-2008, no. 115, repro.

2012: Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude, The National Gallery, London, 2012, no. 55, repro.

2013: Turner & the Sea, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England; Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, 2013-2014, no. 86, repro. (shown only in Greenwich).

2022: Turner’s Modern World, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 2022, not in catalogue.

Technical Summary

The medium-weight canvas is plain woven; it was lined in 1967. The ground is white; it is very thickly applied and virtually masks the weave of the canvas. The painting is executed very richly with vigorous brushwork and much use of scumbles; the highlights in the water are thickly impasted, and the moon almost stands out in relief. The sky is painted very thinly and fluidly, probably with some use of watercolor; the rigging on the boats, especially on the left, may also be done in watercolor. The paint surface seems to be slightly abraded, and some of the highest impasto has been flattened during lining. There is scattered retouching throughout. The thick natural resin varnish, which has discolored yellow to a significant degree, was not removed before the dammar varnish was applied in 1967.

Bibliography

1835: Fraser's Magazine 12 (12 July 1835): 55.

1835: London Literary Gazette, no. 955, 9 May 1835: 298.

1835: Morning Chronicle, 6 May 1835.

1835: Spectator, 8, no. 358, 9 May 1835: 447.

1835: The Times (London), 23 May 1835.

1915: Roberts, William. Pictures in the Collection of P.A.B. Widener at Lynnewood Hall, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: British and Modern French Schools, Philadelphia, 1915: unpaginated, repro.

1923: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1923: unpaginated, repro.

1931: Paintings in the Collection of Joseph Widener at Lynnewood Hall. Intro. by Wilhelm R. Valentiner. Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, 1931: 20, repro.

1942: Works of Art from the Widener Collection. Foreword by David Finley and John Walker. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 7.

1944: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 148, color repro.

1948: Paintings and Sculpture from the Widener Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1948 (reprinted 1959): 97, repro.

1957: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 148.

1960: The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 26.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 322, repro.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 133.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:372, color repro.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 152, color repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 120, repro.

1973: Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 93, 99 repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 354, repro.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 600, color repro.

1979: Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 99, pl. 87.

1979: Wilton, Andrew. The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner. London, 1979: 220, color pl. 217 (detail).

1980: Collected Correspondence of J.M.W. Turner. Edited by John Gage. Oxford, 1980: 159, no. 198.

1984: Butlin, Martin, and Evelyn Joll. The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1977. (2d rev. ed., 1984): 1:no. 360; 2:color pl. 363.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 413, no. 585, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 405, repro.

1986: Treuherz, Julian. "The Turner Collector: Henry McConnel, Cotton Spinner." Turner Studies 6 (1986): 38-39, 40-41, 42, fig. 3.

1987: Wilton, Andrew. Turner in His Time. London, 1987: 186, repro. 253.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 278-280, color repro. 279.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 157, repro.

1997: Rodner, William S. J.M.W. Turner: Romantic Painter of the Industrial Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

1997: The Victorians: British Painting in the Reign of Queen Victoria, 1837-1901. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1997: no. 1.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: v, 298-299, 346-3471, no. 278, color repro.

2008: Schwander, Martin, ed. Venice: From Canaletto and Turner to Monet. Ostfildern, 2008: 61, 67 n. 14.

2011: Tabili, Laura. Global Migrants, Local Culture: Natives and Newcomers in Provincial England, 1841-1939. London, 2011: cover, color repro.