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.2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Laira (Plym Estuary) near Saltram Park, with Clarke's Battery Beyond 1814

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Laira (Plym Estuary) near Saltram Park, with Clarke's Battery Beyond’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Recto:
The Laira (Plym Estuary) near Saltram Park, with Clarke’s Battery Beyond 1814
D09717
Turner Bequest CXXXIII 41
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 178 mm
Part watermark ‘Fell | 18’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘41’ bottom right, descending vertically, and ‘294’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXXXIII 41’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner looks south-west across the Laira (Plym Estuary) from the neighbourhood of Boringdon Park. There is a wider prospect, where this part of the view is largely obscured by trees in the foreground, on folio 39 recto (D09715), under which the subject is discussed. The fortification on the summit near the centre is Clarke’s Battery,1 as also seen in Turner’s oil sketch of 1813 (Tate D09211; Turner Bequest CXXX E).2
The drawing on folio 40 recto (D09716) is effectively a continuation to the left.
1
See Sam Smiles, ‘The Devonshire Oil Sketches of 1813’, Turner Studies, vol.9, no.1, Summer 1989, p.14.
2
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.133 no.217, pl.218 (colour).
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
July 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Laira (Plym Estuary) near Saltram Park, with Clarke’s Battery Beyond 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 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-the-laira-plym-estuary-near-saltram-park-with-clarkes-r1147268, accessed 26 April 2024.