Bateaux transportant des ancres vers les navires de guerre hollandais

In 1804 Britain was braced for invasion. Napoleon had massed an army and a flotilla at Boulogne, just across the Channel, and the whole south coast was watching the water. That was the year Turner showed this heaving seascape at the Royal Academy. Its subject is old, a naval episode from the previous century of Dutch warships riding a rough sea while boats row out their anchors, but the nervous energy is of its own moment. Some have read it as a warning about what an enemy fleet could still do. Seven men strain at the oars of the nearest rowboat, tossed in a trough of green water under copper-brown cloud.