Joseph Mallord William Turner

This watercolour sketch, achieved without an underlying pencil drawing, depicts the view from the western jetty looking back inland past the lighthouse to the chalk cliffs and the town centre beyond.1 Light watercolour washes in salmon, ochre, and grey have been applied to block in the landscape’s main masses while smaller, more intensely coloured strokes depict the choppy waters without the harbour. A small crowd appears to promenade and peer over the sea defences.

For reasons set out in the Technical notes in the sketchbook Introduction, this work appears inverted in relation to the volume as foliated.

Verso:

Blank; except for a few very light pencil marks towards the binding and a small spots of brown watercolour transferred from folio 6 recto opposite (D35465; Turner Bequest CCCLX 7).