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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Ports of England c.1822-8 > 'Ports of England' Studies > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Distant Tower c.1822-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Distant Tower’ c.1822-8
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Distant Tower c.1822–8
D25362
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 240
Chalk and watercolour on white wove paper, 186 x 306 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘240’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII–240’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This watercolour sketch of an offshore view could either depict the Kentish coastal towns of Margate or Deal or possibly Brighton on the Sussex coast, according to Turner scholar Eric Shanes.1 The drawing may have been produced for the Southern Coast or Ports of England series.2 Should the view be of Margate the tower on the horizon is likely Hooper’s Mill, erected in the late eighteenth century for the purpose of grinding corn, and demolished in around 1828. 3 With its twenty-metre vertical Windshaft-cum-Upright Shaft the Mill made for an imposing presence on the landscape. Hooper’s Mill possibly also features in another colour study within this grouping (Tate D25383; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 260).4
Turner’s handling is fluid; comprised of washes of dilute blue, yellow, and grey applied broadly to map out the composition. Particularly striking is the contrast between the vigorous dry brush-strokes of blue rendering the choppiness of the sea and the blue daubs evoking a cloud formation at the right where the pigment bleeds and feathers into the saturated paper.
The paper, according to Shanes, could date to 1814 but there is no discernable watermark to provide evidence for this.5 The strip of rough dark blue wash may indicate that the drawing was one of a number of others taken on a larger sheet and later separated, the blue strip representing the commencement of a different drawing.

Alice Rylance-Watson
March 2013

1
Shanes 1997, pp.94 Appendix I ‘Brighton’, pp.99 Appendix I ‘Margate’, 100 Appendix I ‘Ports of England Series’, pp.101 Appendix I ‘Sea Sketches and Studies’, 102 Appendix I ‘Southern Coast of England Series’.
2
For colour reproductions of the Southern Coast and Ports views of Margate see Eric Shanes, Turner’s England 1810–38, London 1990, pp.61, no.37 and 136, no.108 respectively.
3
Joseph Hall, Hall's new Margate and Ramsgate guide..., London 1790, p.14 and Jenny West, The Windmills of Kent, London 1973, p.55.
4
Shanes 1997, p.99 Appendix I ‘Margate’.
5
Shanes 1997, p.99 Appendix I ‘Margate’,

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘The Distant Tower c.1822–8 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, 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-distant-tower-r1148225, accessed 26 April 2024.