Joseph Mallord William Turner

Two Views of the Coast: Sheppey; and Queenborough, Sheerness and the River Medway

c.1805–9

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
River and Margate Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 115 × 190 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D06454
Turner Bequest XCIX 56 a

Catalogue entry

Drawn with the sketchbook inverted, these views are continued on folio 61 (D06455; Turner Bequest XCIX 57). Above is the Isle of Sheppey with ships in the foreground, and below a panorama running from Queenborough to the Medway. A cross below marks the points of the compass.
The lower sketch perhaps provided the background for Guardship at the Great Nore, Sheerness, &c (private collection), exhibited at Turner’s Gallery in 1809.1

David Blayney Brown
March 2009

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.67–8 no.91 (pl.101).

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