J.M.W. Turner — The Sunshine Boy

A First-Rate Taking in Stores, 1818
pencil and watercolor with scratching out and stopping out on paper
Turner dashed off this superb watercolor one morning at the request of his patron Walter Fawkes, whose 15-year-old son watched Turner at work and later described the artist's methods : [Turner] began by pouring wet paint onto the paper until it was saturated, he tore, he scratched, he scrubbed at it in a kind of frenzy and the whole thing was chaos — but gradually and as if by magic the lovely ship, with all its exquisite minutia, came into being."

• Turner Show at the National Gallery : Review