Joseph Mallord William Turner

The view is northwards towards East Cowes Castle, with the main tower over the ‘octagon room’ flanked by conservatories. Groups of figures take their ease on the slopes below the garden; compare in particular Tate D20812 (Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 9), and see also D20828 (CCXXVII a 25).

Having been exhibited as a French subject in the nineteenth century, like several others in the present subsection this drawing was categorised in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory in one of the sections of works on blue paper ‘mostly connected with “French Rivers”’.1 It 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.

Technical notes:

There are signs of water damage where the ink has run in a regular area at the centre, apparently indicating that the sheet was mounted at the time of the 1928 flood at the Tate Gallery.

Verso:

Blank; inscribed ?by John Ruskin in red ink ‘496’ bottom left; inscribed in pencil ‘cclx 1 ?’ (sic) bottom right.