Catalogue entry
Eric Shanes has identified this sketch, looking west along Blue Anchor Bay about the point where the Carhampton–Watchet road leaves the coast, as the basis of the watercolour
Minehead, Somersetshire of about 1818 or 1820 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),
1 engraved in 1821 for the
Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England2 (see the concordance of the series in the 1811 tour introduction). Dunster Castle is on the skyline to the left with the nearby Conygar Tower towards the centre and the hills above Minehead (see under folio 4 recto;
D08368) on the right.
For other views of Dunster, see under folio 19 verso (
D08398). Folio 166 recto opposite (
D08673; CXXIII 163) shows the view in the opposite direction. A smaller study on folio 171 verso (
D08683; CXXIII 168a) includes the tree and inn featuring on the right of the
Southern Coast watercolour but not indicated in the present sketch.
John Gage has suggested that the first few lines of poetry on folio 159 verso (
D08661; CXXIII 156a) may relate to the present sketch as interpreted in the sunlit
Southern Coast watercolour,
3 but any similarity is likely to be fortuitous.
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