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 Regatta Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Spire of Holyrood Church, Southampton; Buildings beside Water, Possibly at Cowes 1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Spire of Holyrood Church, Southampton; Buildings beside Water, Possibly at Cowes’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 69 Recto:
?The Spire of Holyrood Church, Southampton; Buildings beside Water, Possibly at Cowes 1827
D18123
Turner Bequest CCVII 69
Pencil on white wove paper, 74 x 100 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘69’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCVII – 69’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, at the top, the spire is probably that of Southampton’s Holyrood Church. This is the last of a sequence of views in the Southampton area; see under folio 58 verso (D18102).
Across the middle of the page, the buildings on a wooded shore may be in the Southampton area, or perhaps at Cowes; compare the hazy distance in the painting East Cowes Castle, the Seat of J. Nash, Esq.; the Regatta Starting for their Moorings, exhibited in at the Royal Academy in 1828 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).1 Below is a study of a yacht, with a detail of the configuration of the top of its mast. For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events at Cowes from late July 1827 onwards, see the sketchbook Introduction.
There are similar sketches on folio 68 verso opposite (D18122).
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.150–1 no.243, pl.247 (colour).
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
December 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?The Spire of Holyrood Church, Southampton; Buildings beside Water, Possibly at Cowes 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, 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-the-spire-of-holyrood-church-southampton-buildings-beside-r1183611, accessed 26 April 2024.