Fishing upon the Blythe-Sand, Tide Setting In

Turner first showed this in 1809, in the gallery he ran for his own work in London, alongside other views of the Thames. The Blythe Sand is a shoal in the Thames estuary above Sheerness, facing Canvey Island, and the boats are out fishing it as the tide comes back in. He plainly rated the picture. He hung it again in his gallery the next year, and in December 1810 he listed it among four works on offer in a letter to his patron Sir John Leicester. In 1815 it went to the Royal Academy under a new title. It never sold. His early biographer Walter Thornbury wrote that Turner took proud pleasure in refusing it to Sir George Beaumont, an influential collector who disliked his work. Thornbury also said Turner later used the canvas as a cat door, which may explain why it was torn in five places, the worst tear running down from the nearest boat almost to the bottom edge.