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

With the page turned horizontally, the focus is on a small crowd of men and women in a variety of bonnets, caps and hats, with slight indications of a tower beyond and vertical strokes at the left which may suggest the mast of moored boats. Turner’s note of ‘Oysters’ at the top left likely indicates that townspeople and fishermen are buying and selling them, probably on a quay at Dunkirk, the subject of various views on adjacent pages, including folio 231 recto opposite (D19298); see under folio 227 verso (D19291). See this sketchbook’s Introduction for discussion of its many figure scenes, and studies of individuals, their costume and headgear.

Oysters or similar molluscs seem to feature in more developed sketch of a man and woman with mildly erotic connotations, labelled ‘The Bivalve Courtship’, in the Life Class (1) sketchbook of about 1835–40 (Tate D27378; Turner Bequest CCLXXIX a 7). Among the English subjects in the present book, Turner appears to have drawn coastal oyster beds at Whitstable (see under folio 251 recto; D19338).