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 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Folkestone’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Recto:
Folkestone 1845
D35376
Turner Bequest CCCLVI 15
Watercolour on white wove paper, 230 x 328 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘15’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLVI–15’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Executed purely in watercolour, this work depicts the obscure profile of buildings atop a coastal headland with a beach in the foreground. The muted gradations and layering of translucent colour lend this possible morning scene a sense of hazy tranquillity.
Technical notes:
There is some offsetting onto folio 14a (D35375) opposite.

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Folkestone 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-r1142154, accessed 26 April 2024.