Joseph Mallord William Turner

Lyme Regis

1811

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

Not on display

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 75 × 117 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D08435
Turner Bequest CXXIII 39

Catalogue entry

Lyme is seen from along what is now Marine Parade, looking east. The sketch is mentioned as having a ‘very slight’ relationship 1 to Turner’s watercolour Lyme Regis, Dorset of about 1834, for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Cincinnati Art Museum),2 although the view is from the opposite direction (see the concordance of subjects in the introduction to the 1811 West Country tour).

There is a view from nearby on folio 36 recto (D08429), under which other sketches of the town are discussed.

Shanes 1979, p.155; see also same author’s J.M.W. Turner: The Foundations of Genius, exhibition catalogue, Taft Museum, Cincinnati 1986, p.60.

Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.401 no.866, reproduced.

Technical notes:

At the top right there is ink offsetting from the word ‘along’, the last word of a passage of Turner’s poetry on folio 38 verso opposite (D08434); he presumably closed the book without waiting for the ink to dry. There are a few spots of ink offsetting from earlier words in the last line, and towards the foot there is some less obvious offsetting which appears to have taken place over time.

Matthew Imms
June 2011

Read full Catalogue entry