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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Thames, London and South of England 1821 ... > London Bridge and Portsmouth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Defences around Portsmouth, with the Square Tower Semaphore Station and Other Buildings ?1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Defences around Portsmouth, with the Square Tower Semaphore Station and Other Buildings’ ?1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Verso:
Defences around Portsmouth, with the Square Tower Semaphore Station and Other Buildings ?1824
D17916
Turner Bequest CCVI 2a
Pencil on white wove paper, 160 x 100 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?M F]’ towards top centre, ‘[?SE C...]’ above centre right, ‘10’ centre, and ‘[?14]’ below centre left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned vertically, there are eight or so studies here of the defences around the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour. Some are effectively too slight to identify positively; the third appears to show the Tudor Southsea Castle, at the southernmost point of the Portsmouth peninsula. The most detailed drawing, towards the bottom, shows the tower at Baltic Wharf (with a detail beside it), the clock tower of the Vulcan Block, the Square Tower semaphore station and Portsmouth Cathedral.
This is one of a continuous series of views around Portsmouth between folios 1 recto and 20 recto (D17913–D17951); many appear to have been made from a boat; for the overall sequence and details of the most prominent buildings and defences, see the Introduction. This page has been linked1 to the watercolours Portsmouth of about 1824 (Lady Lever Art Galley, Port Sunlight),2 engraved in 1825 for Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England (Tate impressions: T04419, T05302–T05304, T05994), and Portsmouth of about 1824–5 (Tate D18152; Turner Bequest CCVIII S),3 engraved in 1828 for The Ports of England, and reissued in 1856 in The Harbours of England (Tate impressions: T04833, T04834). The buildings around the semaphore tower all feature in both designs, but in different juxtapositions.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
See Butlin, Wilton and Gage 1974, p.94, re Ports and Southern Coast, Wilton 1979, p.387, re Ports, Shanes 1981, p.153, re Southern Coast and Ports, and Shanes 2001, p.159, re Ports.
2
Wilton 1979, p.354 no.477, reproduced.
3
Ibid., p.387 no.756, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Defences around Portsmouth, with the Square Tower Semaphore Station and Other Buildings ?1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-defences-around-portsmouth-with-the-square-tower-semaphore-r1172633, accessed 25 April 2024.