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

Turner made these sketches of the Sussex coast with the cliffs of the South Downs from the sea as he travelled from Brighton to Dieppe: see folio 14 verso (Tate D18546l Turner Bequest CCXI 14a). The lowest sketch on this page depicts the stretch of coast from ‘Brighton Bay’ at the left, to the cliffs at Seaford (inscribed ‘Seaforth’), and east towards Beachy Head. The sketches above depict either Seaford Head or Beachy Head, and at the top of the page is a more distance sketch of the coast with a sailing boat. Finberg read Turner’s inscription above the sketch as ‘Folkestone’, but considering the other views on the page, Newhaven (‘N Haven’) may be a more likely reading, making the cliffs at the right inscribed ‘chalk’ those at Seaford.

While the current order of this sketchbook is in doubt (see the sketchbook Introduction), the position of studies of shipping on the outside edges of folios 26, 27 and 28 (Tate D18563, D18565 and D18567; Turner Bequest CCXI 26, 27, 28) suggest that they may have been made during the same sketching session as the views on the present page. For a full list of Turner’s sketches of shipping in this book, see folio 1 (D18525; Turner Bequest CCXI 1).