Joseph Mallord William Turner

With the page turned vertically, at the top is a close-up study of two rather forbidding ladies in large bonnets, probably observed like the figures on the recto (D18058) watching the racing at Cowes. Ann Chumbley and Ian Warrell have noted them in relation to the women caught in a breeze on folio 19 recto (D18024).1 For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events there from late July 1827 onwards, see the sketchbook Introduction.

Below, separated by a horizontal pencil line, is a more workaday scene of a cart and horses loading or unloading a beached sailing boat, while three or perhaps four men in rough dress stand in the foreground.