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

Turner filled this page with small sketches of rocky coastal formations, presumably recorded at various points around the Channel Islands. In the top half of the page are included the jagged forms of distant high cliffs of a type found on the islands of Alderney and particularly Sark, which was the subject of extensive study in this sketchbook. The row of tiny bristling marks towards the bottom right-hand corner of the page may depict the treacherous reefs near Alderney known as The Caskets. ¹ For the recurrence of this geological phenomenon, see the listing under the entry for folio 90 recto (D23693; Turner Bequest CCLII 90). Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the small vista in the bottom right-hand corner looks down on jagged cliffs with pinnacles of rock running down to the sea from a considerable height.