Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Coast towards Bull Point and Lundy from the Torrs, near Ilfracombe

1811

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Cornwall and Devon Sketchbook [pseudo-Finberg CXXV a]
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 140 × 215 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D41358
Turner Bequest CXXV a 76

Catalogue entry

Turner’s viewpoint is the cliffs of the Torrs, west of Ilfracombe, looking across Bull Point and the Bristol Channel to Lundy Island, over twenty miles to the west on the horizon. There is a similar view on folio 61 verso (D41343) and a view from further east on folio 77 recto (D41359). See under folio 37 recto (D41314) for other Ilfracombe views.

As discussed in the introduction, the pages of this ‘sketchbook’ appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Rocks on coast’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it similarly in his own notes as ‘Rocky coast’.2 Figures usually corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of most sheets.

A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.357, as CXXV(a) 87.

C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356^C, as CXXV^a 76.

Technical notes:

The sheet is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.

Verso:

Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘188 | 87’ bottom right. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet, and some abrasion down the right-hand edge which have been repaired

Matthew Imms
July 2011

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