Dover Castle from Shakespeare Cliff

c.1822–4

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Ports of England Sketchbook
Medium: Watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Support: 257 x 178 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D17737
Turner Bequest CCII 18

Display caption

This sketchbook, which Turner seems to have used around 1822 in conjunction with a journey along the southern coast of England, contains twenty-two watercolour studies similar to this opening. This subject is a preparatory stage in the design of a watercolour of Dover engraved in May 1826 as the penultimate plate for the 'Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England'.

Gallery label, August 2004

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Catalogue entry

Alexander Finberg and Turner scholar Andrew Wilton have exhibited this watercolour as a study for the Ports of England view of Scarborough (Tate D18142; Turner Bequest CCVIII I), where it is in fact a view of Dover.1 Along with the colour sketch on folio 13 (Tate D17732; Turner Bequest CCII 13), Ian Warrell writes that this drawing formed the basis of the design of the penultimate plate of the 1826 Southern Coast series (for a list of Tate impressions see folio 13).2

The viewpoint is the earthworks below Shakespeare Cliff. The castle atop the headland, bathed in a radiant morning light, is defined chiefly by blue shadow. Turner has applied multiple layers of translucent wash, which blend in gentle gradations and lend a prismatic, hazy effect.

Wilton 1979, p.387, no.751.

Warrell 1991, p.35, no.17.

Verso:

Inscribed in pencil ‘CCII–18’ bottom centre and again in a different hand towards bottom left.

Alice Rylance-Watson
March 2013

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