Perhaps from these notes he painted the luminous and peaceful 'Old Chain Pier, Brighton,' with the sun low in a yellow haze gilding the sail, and the reflections of boat and sail in the still water. Certainly from this 'study' he composed the finished Brighton picture in the collection of Lord Leconfield. 'A Ship Aground,' which appears to be a pendant to 'The Old Chain Pier, Brighton,' is equally luminous and peaceful, in spite of the ground swell, and the movement of the small craft about the disabled ship.
In the 'Dieppe and Rouen and Paris' Sketch-Book, we find sketches of three pictures, probably Claudes or Poussins, with long descriptions in Turner's handwriting, of which the following are samples:—
'The trees are grey and dull green and the whole foreground cold, the earth particularly cold with a few touches of warm red, but the ground in the picture never protrudes itself or through the Colours' ... 'The sky is very blue at the top with some small white clouds with grey shadows, but at the Hor. [horizon] yellow, so that the distant mountains are relieved and Blue.'
In another Sketch-Book are a number of water-colours on blue paper, probably connected with The Rivers of France series, published between 1833 and 1835.
Turner suffered a great blow this year in the death of his father, for whom he had a deep affection. 'Dad' had been of great use to his famous son, helping in the preparation of his canvases, attending to the gallery of unsold pictures, and so forth. When they were staying at Twickenham, he would travel to town every morning to open the gallery, riding with the market gardeners, who conveyed him to London for a glass of gin a day (his own arrangement). 'Dad' was as careful of money as was his son, who was wont to chuckle, 'Dad taught me nothing except to save halfpence.'
Turner was never again the same man after the death of his father. In this year Sir Thomas Lawrence also died. The Turner Collection at Millbank contains a sketch of the funeral, looking like a double-page in an illustrated weekly. The following letter shows how the death of Lawrence affected him:—
Plate XXV. The Old Chain Pier, Brighton (1830) Tate Gallery
'Dear Jones,—I delayed answering yours until the chance of this finding you in Rome, to give you some account of the dismal prospect of Academic affairs, and of the last sad ceremonies paid yesterday to departed talent gone to that bourn from whence no traveller returns. Alas! only two short months Sir Thomas followed the coffin of Dawe to the same place. We then were his pall-bearers. Who will do the like for me, or when, God only knows how soon! However, it is something to feel that gifted talent can be acknowledged by the many who yesterday waded up to their knees in snow and muck to see the funeral pomp swelled up by the carriages of the great, without the persons themselves.'