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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Kent Coast and Whaling c.1844-5 > Ideas of Folkestone Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Folkestone Harbour 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Folkestone Harbour’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
Folkestone Harbour 1845
D35364
Turner Bequest CCCLVI 4
Watercolour on white wove paper, 230 x 328 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘4’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCCLVI–4’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The timberwork of a jetty, rendered in short verticals of purple paint intersecting the central register, presumably belongs to the original 1809 construction of Folkestone harbour by the engineer Thomas Telford.1 The striking crane-like structure, perhaps a pile-driving machine, is painted in intense black pigment. Behind it is what appears to be a steamboat, identified by the thin trail of steam dispersing into the sky. There are further buildings suggested in the distance to the left. The foreground is largely unresolved, filled in with vigorous divergent strokes of pigment. For other works featuring steamboats in this sketchbook see folios 2, 18, 22 recto (D35363, D35380, D35384).
1
See ‘Folkestone Harbour History’, Folkestone Harbour Company, accessed 18 February 2013, http://www.folkestoneharbour.com/pages/history.html.
Technical notes:
Some of the watercolour continues onto the opposite page.

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Folkestone Harbour 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, June 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-folkestone-harbour-r1142142, accessed 27 April 2024.