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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Coastal Views around Ostend 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coastal Views around Ostend’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 22 Recto:
Coastal Views around Ostend 1840
D30498
Turner Bequest CCCIII 21
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark (countermark): indecipherable maker’s name
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘1’ and ‘Ostend’ towards bottom left, and ‘2’ towards top left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘21’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 21’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are three or four interrelated sketches here, made with the page turned horizontally. Turner’s note at the bottom confirms the subject as Ostend, with overlapping views of its foreshore and defences, with the slender lighthouse (since replaced) overlooking the harbour channel towards the top right, and the urban skyline of towers, spires and a windmill at the top, along the gutter. That aspect is labelled ‘2’, with a ‘1’ near the place name towards the bottom left.
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll have suggested this page and a few others ‘contain features which have some connection’ with the oil seascape Ostend Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844 (Neue Pinakothek, Munich),1 ‘although they are in so summary a shorthand style that it is difficult to be certain of a direct relationship.’2 See folio 6 recto (D30470) for one possible source.
For numerous Ostend views on adjacent pages of this book, marking the end of Turner’s 1840 tour, see under folio 1 recto (D30460). This is the last as foliated, but as Turner had generally been using this sketchbook in reverse of its subsequently numbered sequence, it may well show his first impressions upon reaching the port, hence the emphatic inscription.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.254–5 no.407, pl.412 (colour).
2
Ibid., p.255.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Coastal Views around Ostend 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-coastal-views-around-ostend-r1196256, accessed 04 April 2026.