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 Coastal Defences, Guernsey ?1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coastal Defences, Guernsey’ ?1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 85 Recto:
Coastal Defences, Guernsey ?1832
D23683
Turner Bequest CCLII 85
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Sark]’ top centre, ‘Q...k’ towards top right, ‘G[...] | Ham[...]’ towards bottom left, inverted
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘85’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLII – 85’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner filled this page with small, often overlapping sketches of the Guernsey coast, focusing on the island’s many defensive structures. A distant view of an island fortress, presumably Castle Cornet in St Peter Port, is featured in the top left-hand corner while Guernsey’s distinctive ‘loophole’ towers recur across the page.1 Middle-distance drawings of these structures are found towards the top right- and left-hand corners while distant views are included, inverted in relation the sketchbook as foliated, on the bottom half of the page. For comparison drawings of Castle Cornet in the volume, see the list under the entry for folio 29 verso (D23575; Turner Bequest CCLII 29a).
1
W.H. Clements, Towers of Strength: the Story of the Martello Towers, Barnsley 1999, p.85.
Technical notes:
There is a small brown mark in the centre of the page towards the left-hand side.

John Chu
April 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Coastal Defences, 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-coastal-defences-guernsey-r1175175, accessed 19 April 2024.