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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Guernsey Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rocquaine Bay, Guernsey ?1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rocquaine Bay, Guernsey’ ?1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 80 Recto:
Rocquaine Bay, Guernsey ?1832
D23673
Turner Bequest CCLII 80
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Rocker B’ centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘80’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLII – 80’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner sketched two views of Rocquaine Bay on the western coast of Guernsey onto this page. Fort Grey, the ‘Martello’ tower built at this location during the Napoleonic Wars, recurs in both sketches.1 The top view, framed by an improvised rectangle, takes in the bay from an inland vantage with dark trees to the left. In the lower sketch, inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the bay’s characteristic two beaches can be seen sweeping away from each side of the fortress. For other depictions of Rocquaine in this volume, see the entry for folio 77 verso (D23668; Turner Bequest CCLII 77a).

John Chu
April 2014

1
W.H. Clements, Towers of Strength: the Story of the Martello Towers, Barnsley 1999, pp.67–9.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Rocquaine Bay, Guernsey ?1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-rocquaine-bay-guernsey-r1175165, accessed 25 April 2024.