Der Schiffbruch

In the winter of 1805 England was gripped by news of the Earl of Abergavenny, an East Indiaman that foundered off Weymouth in February with heavy loss of life. Her captain was John Wordsworth, brother of the poet. Turner is thought to have had that disaster in mind when he showed this canvas later the same year in his own gallery off Queen Anne Street. There is no single hero in it. A knot of small boats pitches among the survivors while the sea heaves the wreck up on a wall of grey-green water, and you cannot tell who will be pulled out. Two years on it became the first mezzotint ever published after a painting by Turner, carrying these waves to people who would never see the original.