The sheet is somewhat darkened at the centre from early display, with fresher paper and colour evident at the edges where they were protected by a mount – or rather mounts, as concentric strips of intermediate fading evident around the sky suggest that window mounts with two distinct apertures were used for prolonged periods.
Lindsay Stainton has noted that Turner’s ‘ability to develop a pictorial composition with colour and tone rather than solid form is illustrated in this schematic watercolour ... creating an effect of space through the juxtaposition of washes of colour without relying on traditional procedures for drawing perspective’, the architecture being articulated with ‘the merest flicker of pen and red ink’,
1 as she described it, although it is often a moot point as the whether such details were added in ink or watercolour, with a pen or the point of a fine brush.
Three curving diagonal depressions or creases are evident in the centre of the foreground, where the swiftly applied, broad washes used for the water left the lowest parts bare. Turner seems to have instinctively exploited this adventitious rippled effect by adding darker reflections around these points in loose zig-zag strokes. Compare another waterfront study, Tate
D32174 (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 37), where matching ‘faults’ are evident. The sheets are of the same type, as outlined below.
