Joseph Mallord William Turner

Caernarvon Castle with Sailing Boats; Sunset

c.1798–9

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Academical Sketchbook
Medium
Dimensions
Support: 140 × 216 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D01860
Turner Bequest XLIII 41 a

Display caption

Turner sketched Caernarfon Castle many times during his visit to Wales in 1798. He was particularly fascinated with the changing effects of light on the water in front of the Castle, as this sketch demonstrates.

Although Turner obviously made this informal drawing very quickly, it still shows a profound debt to the carefully balanced classical landscapes of the seventeenth-century artist Claude Lorraine.

Gallery label, September 2004

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