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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Houses on the Front at Weymouth 1811

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Houses on the Front at Weymouth’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 44 Verso:
Houses on the Front at Weymouth 1811
D08446
Turner Bequest CXXIII 44a
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 75 x 117 mm
Part watermark ‘Sm | 17’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a continuation of the Georgian houses on the Esplanade to the right, running north of the main view of Weymouth on the recto of the present leaf (D08445). Because of the orientation of the original drawing, Turner could not slide the page back and carry on side-by-side on the next leaf as he often did; instead he simply turned over the leaf and continued from the left-hand edge, so the two sections of the view cannot be seen at the same time.
Apparently unaware of the main drawing on the recto, Howard Hanley states that the present sketch is the only one consulted for the watercolour Weymouth, Dorsetshire of about 1811 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven), engraved in 1814 for the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England;1 as noted by Eric Shanes, the sketches on both sides of the leaf were used2 (see the concordance of the series in the 1811 tour introduction). Boats and figures including bathers were introduced to the beach at the lower right of the watercolour, at the point corresponding to the blank foreground below the curve of the water-line sketched here. Turner imagines lovers writing their names in the sand in his verses on folio 68 verso (D08493; CXXIII 65a).
Probably in preparation for his 1811 tour, Turner made notes on Weymouth and its surroundings from a recent edition of John Feltham’s Guide to All the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places in the Vale of Heathfield sketchbook (Tate D10206; Turner Bequest CXXXVII 1).

Matthew Imms
June 2011

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.351 no.448, reproduced; see Hanley 1992, p.28, and illustrations: ‘Cat.43’ (modern photograph), ‘Cat.44’ (engraving by J. Crane, 1789), and ‘Cat.45’ (watercolour by John Upham, circa 1812).
2
Shanes 1981, p.152.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Houses on the Front at Weymouth 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-houses-on-the-front-at-weymouth-r1136923, accessed 25 April 2024.