J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

With the page turned horizontally, the curved land mass on the left–hand side of this sketch has been identified as Drake Island in Plymouth Sound. The island used to serve as a military fortification from the late sixteenth century to the mid twentieth. The walls and barrack block of the military barracks situated on the island in the early nineteenth century can be seen in this sketch.1

This is the last of a sequence beginning on folios 17 (D10003–D10009) showing Plymouth Sound and the surrounding area. The verso, D10010, likely shows sailing vessels at Portsmouth, at the start of a long sequence taking up the middle of the sketchbook, as discussed in the Introduction.