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Creator:
Print made by Robert Carrick, ca. 1829–1904
after Joseph Mallord William Turner, 1775–1851
Title:
Rockets and Blue Lights
Additional Title(s):
Rockets and Blue Lights (Close at Hand) to Warn Steam Boats of Shoal Water
Date:
1852
Materials & Techniques:
Chromolithograph on moderately thick,smooth, cream wove paper mounted to beige board
Dimensions:
Sheet: 22 3/8 × 30 inches (56.8 × 76.2 cm), Mount: 26 1/2 × 35 1/4 inches (67.3 × 89.5 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed on mount, upper left: "650"; inscribed on verso in graphite, lower center: "24032"

Lettered inside image, lower left: "The Blue Lights | J M W Turner R A by Robert Carrick 185[...]"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1977.14.8422
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Access:
Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:31349
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This chromolithograph reproduces Turner’s celebrated oil painting Rockets and Blue Lights (Close at Hand ) to Warn Steamboats of Shoal Water, exhibited to great acclaim at the Royal Academy in 1840. A powerful example of Turner’s later engagement with maritime themes, the painting depicts the early nineteenth-century use of flares — which, when burned, would glow bluish white — to alert ships to dangerous sailing conditions.
The choice to reproduce Rockets and Blue Lights in the complex and costly medium of chromolithography clearly indicates the extraordinarily high regard in which the painting was held. In the adjacent display case, a bound album shows how Carrick produced an image so faithful to Turner’s original that it uncannily foreshadows the products of modern mechanical reproduction.

Gallery label for J. M. W. Turner: Romance and Reality (Yale Center for British Art, March - 29, 2025 - July 27, 2025)

J.M.W. Turner: Romance & Reality (Yale Center for British Art, 2025-03-29 - 2025-07-27) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

JMW TURNER : Turner and Colour (Turner Contemporary, 2016-10-07 - 2017-01-08) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

JMW TURNER : Turner and Colour (Hôtel de Caumont, Aix-en-Provence, France, 2016-05-03 - 2016-09-18) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Turner et la couleur, Editions Hazan, Paris, 2016, pp. 154, 155, no. 120, NJ18 .T85 A12 2016 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]


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