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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Guernsey Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Cliffs with Loophole Towers and a Dairy, Guernsey ?1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Cliffs with Loophole Towers and a Dairy, Guernsey’ ?1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 81 Recto:
Cliffs with Loophole Towers and a Dairy, Guernsey ?1832
D23675
Turner Bequest CCLII 81
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Partial watermark ‘J. JELL | 18’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘81’ top left, inverted
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Milk Dairy’ towards bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCLII – 81’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the five or more small drawings worked onto this page record fragmented views of a rocky coastal landscape punctuated by examples of Guernsey’s distinctive eighteenth-century ‘loophole’ towers.1 Towards the bottom left-hand corner, a building with a gable end and vertical stripes is identified by Turner’s note as a dairy.

John Chu
April 2014

1
W.H. Clements, Towers of Strength: the Story of the Martello Towers, Barnsley 1999, p.85.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Cliffs with Loophole Towers and a Dairy, Guernsey ?1832 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-cliffs-with-loophole-towers-and-a-dairy-guernsey-r1175167, accessed 05 April 2026.