At the top left is a landscape with buildings beyond trees which relates directly to Turner’s large classical painting
Caligula’s Palace and Bridge, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831 (Tate
N00512).
1 The shaded architectural element equates to the towering ruins near the centre of that composition, set
contre-jour against the low sun. There is a detailed study for this part of the composition on folio 7 recto opposite (
D35769). See also folios 32 verso and 33 recto (
D35815–D25816; CCCLXIII 31a, 32); the latter includes a slightly more detailed variant on the present drawing.
The colonnade and tower at the bottom left is perhaps a working idea for other aspects of the painting, although there is also what may be a fortuitous resemblance to part of the ruins shown in a watercolour of the
Temple of Minerva, Cape Colonna (Sunium) (Townley Hall Art Gallery and Museum, Burnley),
2 engraved in 1832 for Finden’s
Landscape Illustrations of Lord Byron’s works (Tate impression:
T06178). See folio 44 verso (
D35836; Turner Bequest CCCLXIII 43 a) for a composition more certainly related to a Byronic subject.
Inverted at the top is a slight coastal profile view apparently annotated as showing St Lawrence, just west of Ramsgate, to the north-east across Pegwell Bay; see also folios 28 recto, 29 verso and 39 verso–40 recto (
D35806,
D35809,
D35826–D35827; Turner Bequest CCCLXIII 27, 28a, 38a–39). For views of Ramsgate itself, see Alice Rylance-Watson’s entry for the dramatic
Ports of England watercolour of about 1824 (Tate
D18150; Turner Bequest CCVIII Q).
For other Kent subjects, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.
Matthew Imms
September 2016
