Fishing Boats with Hucksters Bargaining for Fish

In this massive painting, celebrated British landscape artist Joseph Mallord William Turner pursued a theme of longstanding interest to him: the sea. On the left, a large fishing vessel engages in business with a huckster, or peddler, who stands in a small boat in the shadows to the right, gesturing with a raised arm. Both the subject and low horizon draw on the tradition of 17th-century Dutch marine painting, but the work also reflects Turner’s growing interest in dramatic effects of atmosphere and light. In the distance, the artist included a steam-driven vessel trailing a plume of dark smoke, which alludes to the arrival of a new, modern era at sea.