'?The Eddystone Lighthouse in a Storm by a Full Moon', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

?The Eddystone Lighthouse in a Storm by a Full Moon

From Vale of Heathfield Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CXXXVII

Date c.1813

MediumGraphite on paper

Dimensionssupport: 181 x 228 mm

Collection

Tate

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

Reference

D10260

Turner Bequest CXXXVII 41

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

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the Vale of Heathfield Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 42 Recto:

?The Eddystone Lighthouse in a Storm by a Full Moon circa 1813

D10260
Turner Bequest CXXXVII 41

Watercolour on white wove paper, 181 x 228 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘41’ top left, inverted
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CXXXVII 41’ top left, inverted

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Exhibition history

References

Along with watercolours on folios 40 recto and 41 recto (D10257, D10258; CXXXVII 39, 40) this study perhaps represents the Eddystone Lighthouse, off Plymouth, which Turner may have visited in 1813, producing a finished watercolour of it at night, without a moon, by 1817. A possibly related watercolour of an empty sea and sky is on folio 39 verso (D10256; CXXXVII 38). There is a fuller discussion of the subject and dating under D10258.

The composition is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliated sequence.

Matthew Imms
May 2011

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.