Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Isle of Wight from Christchurch

1811

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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: D08403
Turner Bequest CXXIII 22

Catalogue entry

In this view of the Isle of Wight from the west, the Needles are visible at the eastern end of the island, to the left of the houses in the middle ground. This sketch and that on folio 27 recto (D08411) seem to have been the basis of an unfinished watercolour known as Coast Scene with White Cliffs and Boats (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven),1 of a similar size to those Turner completed for the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England project (see the 1811 tour introduction).

There are further views on folios 31 recto and 32 recto (D08419, D08421), and the island and the Needles are mentioned in Turner’s poetry on folio 61 recto (D08479; CXXIII 58). There are slight sketches of Christchurch Priory on folios 24 recto and 34 recto (D08406, D08425), and a detailed view, possibly made on the same occasion, in the larger Vale of Heathfield sketchbook (Tate D10310; Turner Bequest CXXXVII 67).

Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.355 no.488, reproduced; it has since been described as ‘definitely not by Turner’: see Eric Shanes, ‘Books’, Turner Studies, vol.1, no.1, Summer 1981, p.47.

Verso:

Blank

Matthew Imms
June 2011

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