1840
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
A Gurnard is a 1840 watercolor by Joseph Mallord William Turner, a Romanticism work, depicting Fish, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
You see a single fish—a gurnard—lying on its side, sketched in quick, wet strokes of watercolor. Turner painted this in Margate, a seaside town where he often stayed. He made many small studies of fish like this one, possibly to use in larger sea paintings later. The gurnard’s spiky fins and rough texture stand out against the soft, blurred background. It’s not a grand scene, just a quiet moment from nature. The critic John Ruskin, who admired Turner’s work, once owned this piece. To see more of Turner’s quick, lively watercolors, look up *Turner, Joseph Mallord William (RA)*.
A watercolour study of a gurnard by Joseph Mallord William Turner depicts the fish against a blue and white background. The work belongs to a series of fish studies likely made in Margate, Kent, and was once owned by the critic John Ruskin, a friend and advocate of Turner’s.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Joseph Mallord William Turner was born in 1775 at Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, where his father kept a barber and wig-making shop.
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