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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Devon Rivers, No.2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Drake's Island, Mount Edgcumbe and Penlee Point from Plymouth Hoe 1814

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Drake's Island, Mount Edgcumbe and Penlee Point from Plymouth Hoe’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
Drake’s Island, Mount Edgcumbe and Penlee Point from Plymouth Hoe 1814
D09669
Turner Bequest CXXXIII 2
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 178 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘2’ bottom right, descending vertically, and ‘294’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXXXIII 2’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s viewpoint is the western end of Plymouth Hoe, looking south-west past Drake’s Island to Mount Edgcumbe and Penlee Point. The prospect is continued to the right on the verso (D09670); compare also folio 18 recto (D09690).
There is a similar view in the 1811 Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (Tate D08555; Turner Bequest CXXIII 98). The tower in the distance may be the folly above Penlee Point, apparently demolished During World War I for security reasons,1 and still marked as a ruin on Ordnance Survey maps. It also appears to be shown on the distant skyline of a view in the Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketch, and in more detail in the 1811 Ivy Bridge to Penzance sketchbook (Tate D08876; Turner Bequest CXXV 10a).
Turner had made many drawings around Plymouth on his extended 1813 visit, using the Plymouth, Hamoaze sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CXXXI). For various studies on the River Tamar and its estuary the Hamoaze in the present book, see under folio 3 recto (D09671).

Matthew Imms
July 2014

1
See ‘Kingsand and Cawsand’, Rame Peninsula History, accessed 1 February 2011, http://www.ramehistorygroup.org.uk/files/rev_white_papers__ch14__kingsand_and_cawsand.pdf.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Drake’s Island, Mount Edgcumbe and Penlee Point from Plymouth Hoe 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-drakes-island-mount-edgcumbe-and-penlee-point-from-plymouth-r1147220, accessed 25 April 2024.