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 > Cornwall and Devon Sketchbook [pseudo ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Treryn Dinas 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Treryn Dinas’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 69 Recto:
Treryn Dinas 1811
D41351
Turner Bequest CXXV a 69
Pencil on white wove paper, 140 x 215 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Pu]’ bottom left
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘69’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 69’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s view is south-east from the Cornish mainland, with the headland beyond on which the Iron Age hill fort Treryn Dinas stands near Treen. Turner’s inscription seems to be an abbreviation or contraction of the uncertain word ‘P[...]h’ inscribed on another view of the same site on folio 41 recto (D42320), which is perhaps an attempt at a phonetic rendering of Porth Curno, which is nearby. For other views around the site, including the Logan Rock, see under folio 17 recto (D41292).
As discussed in the introduction, the pages of this ‘sketchbook’ appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Cliffs’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Rocky coast’.2 Figures usually corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of most sheets.
1
A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.356, as CXXV(a) 17.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356B, as CXXVa 69.
Technical notes:
The sheet is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘In centre – 116 | 17.’ bottom right. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Treryn Dinas 1811 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-treryn-dinas-r1137499, accessed 26 April 2024.