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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth 1844 > Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Waterside Buildings in Portsmouth Harbour, Possibly at Gosport 1844

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Waterside Buildings in Portsmouth Harbour, Possibly at Gosport’ 1844
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Recto:
Waterside Buildings in Portsmouth Harbour, Possibly at Gosport 1844
D35755
Turner Bequest CCCLXII 37
Pencil on white wove paper, 74 x 116 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘37’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXII – 37’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn both ways up, these sketches appear to be views of waterfront buildings. Like the other rapid sketches in this book, they presumably relates to the arrival of Louis-Philippe, King of the French, at Portsmouth Harbour on 8 October 1844, as discussed in the Introductions to the sketchbook and the overall section. Ian Warrell has suggested that they show the Gosport side, where the King landed;1 little that Turner would have seen has survived there, but compare Edouard Pingret’s 1846 lithograph of Louis-Philippe’s Debarquement à Gosport.2

Matthew Imms
September 2016

1
See Warrell 2013, p.10.
2
See ibid., p.13 fig.6.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Waterside Buildings in Portsmouth Harbour, Possibly at Gosport 1844 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-waterside-buildings-in-portsmouth-harbour-possibly-at-r1185689, accessed 27 April 2024.