'Rye from the Winchelsea Road', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Rye from the Winchelsea Road

From Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CXL

Date c.1816-19

MediumGraphite on paper

Dimensionssupport: 155 x 95 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D10515

Turner Bequest CXL 54 a

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 61 Verso:

Rye from the Winchelsea Road circa 1816–19

D10515
Turner Bequest CXL 54a

Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

Here, Turner is looking towards Rye from the Royal Military Road (built 1804–9) from Winchelsea. He combined this view with another on folio 62 of the sketchbook (D10516; Turner Bequest CXL 55), looking towards Camber Castle, to make up the composition of his watercolour (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff)1 engraved by Edward Goodall in 1824 for Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England. The watercolour brings the castle closer to Rye and makes the town higher than it is in reality, and invents building work to link an extension of the canal to the River Brede. The most direct source for the watercolour is in the Hastings sketchbook (Tate D10369–D10370; Turner Bequest CXXXIX 21a–22), perhaps developed from the sketches here.

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, pp.353–4 no.471.

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.