The Shipwreck, 1805
Oil on canvas
Tate, London, Bequeathed by the Artist, 1856

Again she plunges! hark! a second shock
Bilges the splitting vessel on the rock;
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims shuddering cast their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke
With strong convulsion rends the solid oak:
Ah, Heaven! –behold her crashing ribs divide!
She loosens, parts, and spreads in ruin o'er the tide.
William Falconer, The Shipwreck (canto III, l. 642), 1762

Shipwrecks, tumultuous seas, and nature’s power over man are themes common to the work of Joseph Mallord William Turner. The Shipwreck, exhibited in the artist’s gallery in 1805, may have been a response to William Falconer’s 1762 poem with the same theme or may have referred to the recent sinking of the Earl of Abergavenny. Stories of sailors escaping the wreckage of their vessel were topics well known to the British coastal communities. The shipping industry, which provided much of Great Britain’s commerce, faced many challenges in the inhospitable stormy waters surrounding the island. The strength and height of the waves show no mercy to the men struggling to survive. Due to the popularity of the subject, The Shipwreck was one of his first oil paintings to be engraved and mass produced in black-and-white prints.