Joseph Mallord William Turner

Cliffs in Cornwall or North Devon

1811

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Cornwall and Devon Sketchbook [pseudo-Finberg CXXV a]
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 140 x 215 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D41355
Turner Bequest CXXV a 73

Catalogue entry

This rocky coastline is currently unidentified but is typical of the rugged formations Turner recorded at various sites in Cornwall and North Devon elsewhere in this sketchbook.
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 as ‘Rocks on coast’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it similarly 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.
1
A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.356, as CXXV(a) 61.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356C, as CXXVa 73.
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 ‘162 | 61’ bottom right. The sheet is rubbed and marked along a crease for the whole of its width, and there are glue stains at the corners. There is a stray pencil mark towards the top centre.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

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