The Arrival of Louis-Philippe at the Royal Clarence Yard, Gosport, 8 October 1844

In October 1844 the French king Louis-Philippe sailed into Portsmouth harbour to visit Queen Victoria, said to be the first reigning French monarch to come as the guest of a British sovereign. Turner, by then near 70, seems to have watched the arrival from a small boat, and he made a run of quick sketches before working up two unfinished oils. This is one of them. Very little of the ceremony survives on the canvas. The royal ships, the crowds on either shore, the smoke and light over the water all dissolve into one another, barely holding their shapes. For more than a century the picture was catalogued as a view of Venice. Only in 2003 did the Turner scholar Ian Warrell tie it back to that autumn day off Gosport.