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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Kent Coast and Whaling c.1844-5 > Ideas of Folkestone Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner On the Sands: Folkestone 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘On the Sands: Folkestone’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
On the Sands: Folkestone 1845
D35366
Turner Bequest CCCLVI 6
Watercolour on white wove paper, 230 x 328 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘6’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLVI–6’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner has applied translucent washes of watercolour in broad, gestural strokes to set out the basic arrangement of this Folkestone beach composition. The obscure outline of a headland is visible in the distance. It is summarily rendered with swift lines and dots of purple and with grey wash applied with a dry brush lending it a mottled appearance. Faint, vertical dry-brush strokes at the right could possibly suggest sea grasses of some sort. Turner has applied a very thin layer of grey wash for the overcast sky. Rainfall is evoked above the headland where the wash has dragged against the grain of the paper.
Technical notes:
Some of the watercolour continues onto the opposite page and appears to have also offset onto this page.

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘On the Sands: Folkestone 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, June 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-on-the-sands-folkestone-r1142144, accessed 18 April 2024.