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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North Wales 1799-1801 > Dolbadarn Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Penmaenmawr: View along the Coast towards Llanfairfechan 1799

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Penmaenmawr: View along the Coast towards Llanfairfechan’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 90 Verso:
Penmaenmawr: View along the Coast towards Llanfairfechan 1799
D02130
Turner Bequest XLVI 90a
Pencil on white wove paper prepared with a pale yellow ground, 79 x 130 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘do’ top centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The inscription ‘do’ (for ‘ditto’) suggests that this slight sketch, made with the page turned horizontally, is to be read in conjunction with that on folio 91 recto opposite (D02131) as a pair of views from the top of Penmaenmawr. The famous headland on the north Welsh coast between Conwy and Llanfairfechan could be approached either along the coast road, which partly followed the sea shore, or over the moors from the Sychnant Pass; see folios 55 recto and 57 verso–58 recto (D02079, D02084–D02085).
These two drawings seem to record views from the summit, on this page looking west towards the mountains of Snowdonia, and opposite looking east towards the Great Orme, which is visible in the centre distance. Eric Shanes proposes a ‘very slight’ connection1 with Turner’s Picturesque Views in England and Wales watercolour subject of about 1832, Penmaen Mawr, Caernarvonshire (British Museum, London),2 engraved by J.T. Willmore in 1834 (Tate impressions: T04601, T06107), which however shows the wave-lashed road round the base of the headland; it contains no elements in common with either of these two sketches.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Shanes 1979, p.155.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.400 no.852, reproduced.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Penmaenmawr: View along the Coast towards Llanfairfechan 1799 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-penmaenmawr-view-along-the-coast-towards-llanfairfechan-r1179989, accessed 25 April 2024.