J. M. W. Turner

Dort or Dordrecht: The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam Becalmed
1817-18
62 x 92 in. (157.5 x 233.7 cm)

Turner visited Dordrecht (sometimes known as Dort) on a tour of the Netherlands in the summer of 1817; he spent a day and a half there and made many pencil sketches, some of which were the basis for this grand view of the city from the north. The river is the Noord, and the becalmed packet (more precisely market-boat) is "The Swan," which sailed regularly between Dordrecht and Rotterdam; while awaiting a change in the wind or tide, the passengers are buying food and drink from enterprising local people in rowboats. Ever matching himself against other landscapists, Turner imitates the style of the seventeenth-century Dutch master Aelbert Cuyp, particularly in the high contrast of dark elements against luminous sky and water. Dordrecht was Cuyp's birthplace, and the black-capped painter in the nearest rowboat may be a jokey portrait of him. Given Turner's abiding interest in the fate of nations and the rise and fall of empires, he may also have meant the painting as a reflection on the state of the Netherlands, glorious in the age of Cuyp but now in the doldrums. It was bought from him by one of his best patrons, Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall in Yorkshire, and hung in the dining room at Farnley more or less without interruption until purchased by Paul Mellon in 1966.