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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Isle of Wight 1827 > The House and Grounds at East Cowes ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner East Cowes Castle from the West, by the Full Moon 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘East Cowes Castle from the West, by the Full Moon’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
East Cowes Castle from the West, by the Full Moon 1827
D20836
Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 33
Chalk and ink on blue wove paper, 140 x 186 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘33’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVII(a) 33’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Among dense trees below East Cowes Castle, seen to the east by the rising full moon, there appears to be a succession of steps or terracing in the foreground.
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, where other moonlit examples are noted.
Verso:
Blank; there is a hint of the heavy ink on the recto bleeding through.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘East Cowes Castle from the West, by the Full Moon 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-west-by-the-full-moon-r1182699, accessed 25 April 2024.