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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Falmouth Harbour 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 114 Recto:
Falmouth Harbour 1811
D08579
Turner Bequest CXXIII 111
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 75 x 117 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘111’ bottom right, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXXIII – 111’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Eric Shanes has noted this sketch, along with that on folio 112 verso (D08576; CXXIII 109a), as a source for the watercolour Falmouth Harbour of about 1812–14 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),1 engraved in 1816 for the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England2 (see the concordance of the series in the 1811 tour introduction). The drawing is in at least four and perhaps five truncated sections, with the tower of the Church of King Charles the Martyr at the centre, drawn from the same viewpoint, perhaps from below the Beacon, at about where Harbour Terrace and Erisey Terrace now meet above the High Street.
There is a similar view on folio 92 verso (D08538; CXXIII 89a) which presumably also informed the Southern Coast design. For other views in and around Falmouth see under folio 7 verso (D08375).

Matthew Imms
June 2011

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.351–2 no.455, reproduced.
2
Shanes 1981, p.152.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Falmouth Harbour 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-falmouth-harbour-r1137056, accessed 28 March 2024.