This view of boats, probably in the harbour at Dover, is practically identical in many respects to a grey wash and pencil drawing by Turner (23 x 29.5 cm) from his Kent tour of 1793, which sold for £17,500 at Sotheby's Important British Drawings sale of 5 June 2008, lot 171. The Turner includes a wooden quay on the right with the stern of a rowing boat, has a sloping spar with a broken upper end where this drawing shows two sloping oars, and lacks the brig or other two-masted vessel shown here and the signal tower and capstan at the end of the jetty. It seems unlikely that Nicholas Pocock (to whom it was formerly ascribed) would be copying Turner at this date and this drawing is also not convincingly his style. It is more likely to be by his son and pupil William Innes Pocock (1783 -1836), who became a naval lieutenant in 1811. The mystery is how either of the Pococks might have had access to such an early drawing by Turner to make a copy. The only options are that Turner was himself copying a common source, not working from nature, or that his drawing was either in Nicholas Pocock's possession or that of someone else to whom Nicholas and/ or William Pocock had access. A possible candidate is Dr Thomas Monro, who supported Turner and Girtin as young men, and whose home was a rendezvous for many other artists, especially draughtsmen and watercolourists. It is also known that both Turner and Girtin copied similar drawings in Dover which the amateur artist and collector John Henderson (1764-1843) made on a tour of Kent in 1794 and then commissioned them to do, which might provide another common source. Some of Henderson originals, and Girtin copies, are now in the British Museum, but whether this subject is among them is not yet known [PvdM 10/08, amended 5/14]