Joseph Mallord William Turner

Although Finberg described this view of East Cowes Castle as including figures ‘on the terrace’,1 they appear to be some way off from the formal gardens immediately surrounding the house, seen here from the north-west, with the wooded grounds falling away to the valley of the River Medina on the right. Compare the slighter figures in a similar view (Tate D20821; Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 18). With the suggestion of the upper half of a wheel at the bottom left here, they may be accompanied by a small cart or carriage.

This is among dozens of blue paper studies made in and around East Cowes Castle, presumably during the same visit. For more on the various aspects of the house (demolished in about 1950), and its lost grounds as depicted by Turner, see the Introduction to this subsection, where other moonlit scenes are noted.

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