This is one of eight ‘colour beginnings’ catalogued here as Land’s End subjects; the others are Tate
D25129,
D25163,
D25165,
D25172,
D25274,
D36323 and
D36324 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 7, 41, 43, 50, 152, CCCLXV 32, 33). A further colour study has been proposed as a Land’s End view among other possibilities (Tate
D25185; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 63). For Turner’s 1811 pencil sketches at Land’s End, see under
D25129.
Eric Shanes has suggested that the present work,
D25163,
D25165 and
D25274 (CCLXIII 41, 43, 152) relate in varying degrees to the watercolour
Longships Lighthouse, Land’s End of about 1834 (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles),
1 engraved in 1836 for the
Picturesque Views in England and Wales (no impressions held at Tate).
2 The most closely related pencil study in the 1811
Cornwall and Devon sketchbook (albeit with many variations) is Tate
D41303 (Turner Bequest CXXV a 27).
The present composition is loose and unresolved, with much of it worked wet in wet, although the fundamentals of a cliff to the right of a stormy sky and sea roughly correspond with the England and Wales design.
See also the introductions to the present subsection of identified subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
