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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales and Isle of Wight 1795-1800 > Isle of Wight Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Southampton: The Town Seen from the Water 1795

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Southampton: The Town Seen from the Water’ 1795
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Recto:
Southampton: The Town Seen from the Water 1795
D00418
Turner Bequest XXIV 12
Pencil on white wove paper, 152 x 204 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘12’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXIV 12’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view of the town was presumably taken as Turner crossed from Southampton to the Isle of Wight, sailing down Southampton Water. The two spires are those of the churches of St Michael and St Mary, both early medieval foundations whose fabric had been renewed and replaced often by Turner’s time (both were completely rebuilt in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries).
Technical notes:
The lower half of the page had been cut away by Finberg’s time; the sketchbook’s intact pages measure 264 x 204 mm.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Southampton: The Town Seen from the Water 1795 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-southampton-the-town-seen-from-the-water-r1140995, accessed 19 April 2024.