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 > Cowes, the River Medina and Shipping > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Wreckage below a Cliff, with a Lighthouse in the Distance 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Wreckage below a Cliff, with a Lighthouse in the Distance’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?Wreckage below a Cliff, with a Lighthouse in the Distance 1827
D40308
Chalk and pencil on blue wove paper, 143 x 192 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘436’ bottom left
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCXXVIII 36’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCCVIII 36’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is among dozens of blue paper studies presumably made in connection with the Cowes Regatta events in the late summer of 1827; see the Introduction to this subsection for other generic harbour and coastal scenes.
The present view, on the verso of D20896 (Turner Bequest CCXXVIII 36), is not specifically mentioned in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory.1 It appears to show white chalk cliffs, appropriately highlighted using the same medium, with a white tower, probably a lighthouse, in the distance. The jumbled pencil work at the bottom may indicate wreckage below the cliff, and it is unclear whether this scene was observed on the Isle of Wight or the nearby South Coast, or recollected or imagined as an idea for a composition. The recto also shows the aftermath of a shipwreck.
Technical notes:
Despite Finberg’s statement that this sheet was unmounted,1 as noted under D20896, the remnants of white mounting paper or tape are evident at the corners on this side.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

1
See ibid.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?Wreckage below a Cliff, with a Lighthouse in the Distance 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-wreckage-below-a-cliff-with-a-lighthouse-in-the-distance-r1183430, accessed 24 April 2024.