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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Camber Castle; the Royal Military Canal from the Winchelsea Road c.1816-19

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Camber Castle; the Royal Military Canal from the Winchelsea Road’ c.1816-19
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 62 Recto:
Camber Castle; the Royal Military Canal from the Winchelsea Road circa 1816–19
D10516
Turner Bequest CXL 55
Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Sheep’ below the castle, centre, ‘Military Canal’ centre right and ‘Road to Rye’ below image, lower centre. There is a further inscription in pencil, illegible, upper right
Inscribed by john Ruskin in blue ink top left, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXL 55’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As in the sketch facing on folio 61 verso of the sketchbook (D10515; Turner Bequest CXL 54a), Turner is positioned on the Royal Military Road (built 1804–9) from Winchelsea to Rye. Here he looks to his right at Camber Castle, noting sheep grazing on the surrounding marsh and the Royal Military Canal. He combined these elements in his watercolour (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff)1 engraved by Edward Goodall in 1824 for Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England, which brings the castle closer to Rye and makes the town higher than they are 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.
For sketches made inside the walls of the castle see folios 60 verso and 61 of this sketchbook (D10513, D10514; Turner Bequest CXL 53a, 54).

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, pp.353–4 no.471.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Camber Castle; the Royal Military Canal from the Winchelsea Road c.1816–19 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-camber-castle-the-royal-military-canal-from-the-winchelsea-r1131510, accessed 24 April 2024.