Joseph Mallord William Turner

Buildings and Cliffs overlooking the Channel

1845

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Dieppe and Kent Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 86 × 111 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D35527
Turner Bequest CCCLXI 23

Catalogue entry

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this view is continued across folio 24 recto opposite (D35529). The subject may well be a fishing village, as Finberg described it,1 but beyond that the location, presumably on the Channel coast, is as yet unidentified. See the sketchbook’s Introduction for the many slight coastal views scattered through it.

The blank recto is inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘23’ and stamped in black ‘CCCLXI – 23’ at the bottom right. For numerous instances of blank, unaccessioned rectos in this sketchbook, see the technical notes in the Introduction.

See Finberg 1909, II, p.1172.

Technical notes:

There is some brown staining at the gutter, possibly indicating water damage in the 1928 Tate flood.

Matthew Imms
September 2016

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