Joseph Mallord William Turner

Turner sketched at least three distinct views onto this page. At the top of the page is an apparently continuous view of a coastline punctuated by various architectural features including one of Guernsey’s distinctive eighteenth-century ‘loophole’ towers. ¹ The sketch of battlements with round towers in the bottom right-hand corner of the page, inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, depicts Essex Castle on neighbouring Alderney Island.2 This unfinished Elizabethan fortress recurs on folio 91 verso (D23696; Turner Bequest CCLII 91a).

In the centre of the page, also inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, is a cluster of tall gable-ended buildings next to a round, basin-like structure. The most substantial such settlement on the Channel Islands featured in this sketchbook is the town of St Peter Port, Guernsey although Turner also used this volume to study built-up areas of Hampshire and Normandy.

Technical notes:

There are very small dots of red ink in the bottom left-hand corner.