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 > Ivy Bridge to Penzance Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Hulks on the Hamoaze with ?Trematon Castle in the Distance 1811

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Hulks on the Hamoaze with ?Trematon Castle in the Distance’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Recto:
Hulks on the Hamoaze with ?Trematon Castle in the Distance 1811
D08871
Turner Bequest CXXV 6
Pencil on white wove paper, 166 x 208 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV – 6’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg1 relates this sketch and that on folio 8 recto (D08872; CXXV 7) to the oil painting Hulks on the Tamar, possibly exhibited at Turner’s gallery in 1812 (Tate T03881; displayed at Petworth House, West Sussex).2 However, as Butlin and Joll observe, ‘the connection ... seems most doubtful.’3 The tower in the distance may be Trematon Castle, overlooking the St Germans or Lynher River as it runs into the Hamoaze (the Tamar Estuary) west of Plymouth. There are numerous later studies of it in the later Plymouth, Hamoaze sketchbook (beginning at Tate D09256; Turner Bequest CXXXI 37) and Devon Rivers, No.2 sketchbook (beginning at Tate D09700; Turner Bequest CXXXIII 27a).
This is one of a series of sketches of Plymouth and nearby districts, running from folio 3 recto (D08866; CXXV 2) to folio 14 recto (D08880; CXXV 13); see the entry for the first of these for other Plymouth views.
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.355.
2
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.84–5 no.119, pl.126.
3
Ibid., p.85.
Technical notes:
There is some brown spotting in the sky.
Verso:
Blank. A tear has been repaired at the bottom right.

Matthew Imms
February 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Hulks on the Hamoaze with ?Trematon Castle in the Distance 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-hulks-on-the-hamoaze-with-trematon-castle-in-the-distance-r1137352, accessed 24 April 2024.