Turner 's Dutch boats in a gale: fishermen endeavouring to put their fish on board ('The Bridgewater Sea Piece'), oil on canvas, exhibited Royal Academy 1801, Private Collection ( Wilton P14); painted for Francis Egerton (1736-1803), third and last Duke of Bridgewater. Although Ruskin may have had access to the picture as it hung in Bridgewater House, London, he would also have known it through its appearance in the British Institution 's summer exhibition of old masters in 1837.
Although Ruskin describes the picture here as comparatively 'free from Dutch infection', in the 1851 pamphlet Pre-Raphaelitism he declared it 'spoiled' by the imitation of Van de Velde ( Works, 12.372-3).