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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner East Cowes Castle from the South-East, with the Mouth of the River Medina and Cowes Beyond 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
East Cowes Castle from the South-East, with the Mouth of the River Medina and Cowes Beyond 1827
D20820
Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 17
Chalk and ink on blue wove paper, 139 x 195 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘17’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVII(a) 17’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The view is to the north-west, with East Cowes Castle on the crest to the right and Cowes across the River Medina below, and the tower of St Mary’s Church, Cowes, designed by Turner’s Isle of Wight host John Nash,1 on the skyline to the left. There is possibly the suggestion of a group of figures in the left foreground. For similar views, see under Tate D20804 (Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 1).
This is among dozens of blue paper studies made in and around East Cowes Castle, presumably in the course of a single visit. For more on the various aspects of the house (demolished in about 1950), and its lost grounds as depicted by Turner, see the Introduction to this subsection.
1
See ‘About the Building’, Welcome to St Mary the Virgin Church, Cowes, accessed 15 December 2014, http://www.stmaryschurchcowes.org.uk/about%20the%20building.html.
Technical notes:
The bottom edge of this sheet is particularly irregular.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘East Cowes Castle from the South-East, with the Mouth of the River Medina and Cowes Beyond 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-east-cowes-castle-from-the-south-east-with-the-mouth-of-the-r1182681, accessed 23 April 2024.