Joseph Mallord William Turner

The composition is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. It is one of three pages near the beginning of this sketchbook worked in watercolour alone; see also folios 9 recto and 11 verso (D20608, D41016). The rainstorm sweeping over the low shoreline and what is presumably the sea may have been observed directly, or it may have been an idea for the setting of a coastal scene; compare for example the elemental studies of clouds and sea in the Ports of England sketchbook of a few years earlier (Tate; Turner Bequest CCII).

If the setting is real, it is presumably on the Isle of Wight or the nearby Hampshire mainland. For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events at Cowes on the island from late July 1827 onwards, see the Introduction.

Verso:

Blank, save for slight watercolour offsetting from folio 9 recto opposite (D20608).