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

Turner worked at least two sketches of coastal views with defensive structures onto this page. In a single panoramic sweep, the top of the page features a bay from a high vantage with a stout waterside building in the middle distance and a taller, isolated structure on the horizon. Towards the lower right-hand corner of the page, inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, a smaller sketch depicts a landscape resembling Rocquaine Bay on the western coast of Guernsey. The fortress at the centre of the bay may represent Fort Grey, the ‘Martello’ tower which defended this part of the island during the Napoleonic Wars.1 For comparisons, see the drawings of Rocquaine Bay listed under the entry for folio 77 verso (D23668; Turner Bequest CCLII 77a).