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

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

?The Eddystone Lighthouse in a Storm by Daylight

From Vale of Heathfield Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CXXXVII

Date c.1813

MediumWatercolour on paper

Dimensionssupport: 181 x 228 mm

Collection

Tate

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

Reference

D10257

Turner Bequest CXXXVII 39

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 40 Recto:

?The Eddystone Lighthouse in a Storm by Daylight circa 1813

D10257
Turner Bequest CXXXVII 39

Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 181 x 228 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘39’ top left, inverted
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CXXXVII 39’ top left, inverted

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Exhibition history

References

Along with watercolours on folios 41 recto and 42 recto (D10258, D10260; CXXXVII 40, 41) this study perhaps represents the Eddystone Lighthouse, off Plymouth, which Turner may have visited in 1813, producing a finished watercolour of it at night by 1817. There is a possibly related watercolour of an empty sea and sky on folio 39 verso opposite (D10256; CXXXVII 38).

This dynamic study has been described as ‘of a freedom normally associated with the late 1810s, or even later’,1 but it is here dated to about the former year, assuming Turner visited the lighthouse then and represents it here. There is a fuller discussion under D10258.

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

Butlin, Wilton and Gage 1974, p.66.

Verso:

Blank

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.