Joseph Mallord William Turner

Seen from the east, above Boscastle’s harbour on the River Valency, Penally Hill is in the foreground with Willapark Hill and its look-out tower beyond and the Meachard Rock in the sea to the right. There is another view from further up the north bank of the Valency on folio 55 verso (D41336) and, in the contemporary Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (Tate D08705; Turner Bequest CXXIII 182), a further sketch used for a Southern Coast design.

As discussed in the introduction, the pages of this ‘sketchbook’ appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject tentatively but correctly as ‘Rocks on coast, with watch tower. Prbly near Boscastle’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Rocky coast’.2 Figures usually corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of most sheets.

Technical notes:

The sheet is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.

Verso:

Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘166 | 65’ top left, upside down, and a stray pencil mark towards the bottom left. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet.