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

Not mentioned in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory,1 this slight sketch, made with the page turned vertically, at the top is a loose sketch of a port or river scene with buildings on the right and masts or trees on both sides, with the disk of a low sun to the left of the centre. Figures may be indicated in the foreground. It may be a spontaneous sketch in the manner of Turner’s harbour scenes influenced by Claude Lorrain (c.1604–1682), such as the painting The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1817 (Tate N00499).2

In the 1800s, Turner’s experience of the Thames around Richmond, with grand neo-classical houses in picturesque wooded settings, had often evoked spontaneous studies for the historical or mythological compositions of the sort he painted on a large scale;3 the Thameside sketches of the classical Pavilion at Isleworth and nearby Syon House on the recto (D18652) may have led to similar thoughts here. Compare the watercolour on folio 20 recto (D18623), possibly a capriccio of Richmond Bridge.