Joseph Mallord William Turner

East Looe and the Coast beyond West Looe

1811

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 75 x 117 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D08582
Turner Bequest CXXIII 112 a

Catalogue entry

Turner’s viewpoint is the cliffs east of East Looe, looking south past the church and pier to Hannafore Point with St George’s or Looe Island in the distance. The coast in the opposite direction is shown on folio 114 verso (D08580; CXXIII 111a).

Eric Shanes has noted this sketch, along with that on folio 116 recto opposite (D08583; CXXIII 113), as a source for the watercolour East and West Looe, Cornwall of about 1815 (Manchester Art Gallery),1 engraved in 1818 for the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England 2 (see the concordance of the series in the 1811 tour introduction). However, the direct source of the composition, as recognised by Finberg and also noted by Shanes,3 is a drawing in the Ivy Bridge to Penzance sketchbook (Tate D08887; Turner Bequest CXXV 17a), under which other views of Looe in the same book are discussed.

There are other local views in the present sketchbook on folios 117 recto and verso, folio 118 verso and folio 132 verso (D08585, D08586, D08588, D08614; CXXIII 114, 114a, 115a, 129a).

Matthew Imms
June 2011

Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.352 no.461, reproduced.

Shanes 1981, p.152.

Finberg 1909, I, p.355; Shanes 1981, p.152.

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