J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

For a probable view of the former entrance front of Rosehill (now Brightling) Park in this sketchbook see folio 61 (D07689). This quick sketch shows the house from the gardens, with the garden front running from the corner block shown on the right in folio 61, and the low service block at the back. These sketches seem to predate most of the improvements made by Robert Smirke, 1810–12, chiefly the transformation of this end of the house into two storeys with a classical, pillared elevation and a three-sided bay. Smirke’s work can be seen in a drawing in the later Hastings sketchbook (Tate D10393–D10390; Turner Bequest CXXXIX 34–32a) and in the watercolour Turner made for Fuller circa 1816 (British Museum, London).1 The house is now much reduced in size.

Turner’s painting Rosehill Park (private collection)2 shows the same side of the house, from a different angle and from further away across the deer park. It was based on a drawing also made in 1810 in the Views in Sussex sketchbook (Tate D10329; Turner Bequest CXXXVIII 10), which derives from a more panoramic sketch covering folios 20 verso–22 in the present sketchbook (D07623–D07625).