Autograph letter signed ("J. M. W. Turner").
[London], 31. I. 1845.
8vo. 1 page on bifolium, with integral blank.
$10,607.00
To the collector Elhanan Bicknell (1788-1861): "I will thank you for a call in Queen Anne Street at your earliest convenience, for I have a whale or two on the canvass [...]".
Remnants of prior mounting on terminal page along vertical fold, faint scattered soiling. "Whalers", exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1845, was painted for Bicknell, a wealthy whale oil merchant. It is now shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.