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 and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Devon Rivers, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Calstock, with Cotehele House and Prospect Tower above the River Tamar Beyond 1814

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Calstock, with Cotehele House and Prospect Tower above the River Tamar Beyond’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 141 Recto:
Calstock, with Cotehele House and Prospect Tower above the River Tamar Beyond 1814
D09656
Turner Bequest CXXXII 141
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 152 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘141’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXII – 141’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Diana Cook and Dorothy Kirk note,1 Cotehele and the Prospect Tower appear on the skyline, looking west down the Tamar. The prospect remains much the same from Lower Kelly, west of the twentieth-century railway viaduct, or from the quays to its east.
The same boat, or a similar one, appears in the study in the opposite direction on the verso (D09657). There is a similar view from a higher vantage point above the river in the Vale of Heathfield sketchbook (Tate D10265; Turner Bequest CXXXVII 43a), probably used in 1813, and another sketch of the house and tower on folio 142 verso here (D09659).
For other views along the Tamar Valley, see under folio 114 verso (D09606).

Matthew Imms
June 2014

1
Cook and Kirk 2001, p.32; Cook and Kirk 2009, p.33.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Calstock, with Cotehele House and Prospect Tower above the River Tamar Beyond 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-calstock-with-cotehele-house-and-prospect-tower-above-the-r1147205, accessed 19 April 2024.