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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Warships in Portsmouth Harbour; Portchester Castle from the South-East ?1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Verso:
Warships in Portsmouth Harbour; Portchester Castle from the South-East ?1824
D17934
Turner Bequest CCVI 11a
Pencil on white wove paper, 160 x 100 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned vertically, there are four studies here. At the top is a group of moored warships in Portsmouth Harbour. Below are three successively closer views of the medieval keep of Portchester Castle, within the massive outer walls of the third-century Roman ‘Saxon Shore’ fort,1 as Turner approached by water from the south-east. The lower two show the gateway which gives onto the foreshore on the east side of the Roman compound. There are further views on folios 12 recto and verso (D17935, D17936).
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.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
See ‘Portchester Castle’, English Heritage, accessed 14 December 2014, http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/portchester-castle/.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Warships in Portsmouth Harbour; Portchester Castle from the South-East ?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-warships-in-portsmouth-harbour-portchester-castle-from-the-r1172651, accessed 29 March 2024.