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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Plymouth: The Citadel and Mount Batten 1813

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 230 Verso:
Plymouth: The Citadel and Mount Batten 1813
D09386
Turner Bequest CXXXI 141a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 157 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, Turner looks south from a rural viewpoint with the tower at Mount Batten over the trees to the left, and the Citadel above the Barbican at the centre, and Penlee Point beyond Mount Edgcumbe in the distance to the south-west on the right. There are comparable views on folios 228 verso and 229 verso (D09382; Turner Bequest CXXXI 139a, 140a).
This drawing is part of a sequence working in from the back cover of the sketchbook, which correlates with accounts of a voyage Turner and others made from Plymouth south-east to Burgh Island, returning by land from Kingsbridge (see folio 252 verso; D09430; Turner Bequest CXXXI 163a) towards Plymouth. The sequence begins on folio 275 (D09476; Turner Bequest CXXXI 186a), under which the overall trip is discussed, and may extend as far as D09382.
Technical notes:
Heavy brown staining at the bottom and right matches that on folio 231 recto opposite (D09387; CXXXI 142).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Plymouth: The Citadel and Mount Batten 1813 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, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-plymouth-the-citadel-and-mount-batten-r1148116, accessed 28 March 2024.