Catalogue entry
The first short word of Turner’s inscription is partly obscured by the stamped Turner Bequest number.
Eric Shanes has noted this sketch as a source for the watercolour
St Mawes, Cornwall of about 1823 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven),
1 engraved in 1824 for the
Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England2 (see the concordance of the series in the 1811 tour introduction). Elsewhere, Shanes also lists it as the basis of a second, untraced watercolour with the same title, of about 1828,
3 engraved in 1830 for the later series
Picturesque Views in England and Wales; he describes the relationship as ‘very slight’
4 although the main elements of topography and activity seen in both versions are traceable to the ‘tiny rough sketch’.
5Having been ‘very attracted’
6 to the scene, Turner had initially painted a version in oils,
St Mawes in the Pilchard Season, which he exhibited at his gallery in 1812 (Tate
N00484).
7 Complete with figures and a note about ‘fish’, the present drawing was made within the harbour itself, with a consequent lateral compression of the relationship of the town and the two castles to the south-west, followed in the oil and
England and Wales versions. Pilchard fishing is mentioned in Turner’s verses on folio 138 verso (
D08624; CXXIII 135a).
8Shanes notes a larger, more detailed drawing of St Mawes in the
Ivy Bridge to Penzance sketchbook (Tate
D08909; Turner Bequest CXXV 30, incorrectly identified by Finberg as ‘Falmouth Harbour’),
9 made from a viewpoint on the shore curving south-east from St Mawes and including the pier enclosing the harbour in the middle distance, as an additional source for the
Southern Coast watercolour; in this version the fish and figures noted on the quay in the present drawing are transferred to the beach in the foreground.
There is some offsetting in the sky from the ink inscription on folio 135 verso opposite (
D08619; CXXIII 132a).
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