Joseph Mallord William Turner

Yachts off East Cowes Castle

1827

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Cowes Regatta Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 74 × 100 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D18069
Turner Bequest CCVII 41 a

Catalogue entry

In this slight study, yachts are shown with the profile of East Cowes Castle beyond and a low sun in the south. This could have been the germ of the idea of the painting East Cowes Castle, the Seat of J. Nash, Esq.; the Regatta Starting for their Moorings, exhibited in at the Royal Academy in 1828 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London),1 where these elements are similarly juxtaposed. For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events at Cowes from late July 1827 onwards, see the sketchbook Introduction, and for other views of the castle, see under folio 22 recto (D18030).

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.150–1 no.243, pl.247 (colour).

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