East Cowes Castle, the Seat of J. Nash, Esq., the Regatta Beating to Windward

In the summer of 1827, the place to be on the English south coast was Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, where the Royal Yacht Club had begun holding an annual regatta only the year before. The architect John Nash, the man behind Regent Street in London and the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, owned a castle-style house at East Cowes, and he invited Turner to stay. Turner watched the races from the shore and from a warship moored offshore, and came away with some 70 drawings and eight oil sketches. Nash then ordered two finished pictures, and both hung at the Royal Academy in 1828. This one shows the yachts beating to windward, tacking hard against the wind. Its companion, the regatta starting for their moorings, is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The pair was split up after Nash died in 1835 and his pictures were sold at Christie's, and this one came to Indianapolis as a gift in 1971.