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 1811 > Cornwall and Devon Sketchbook [pseudo ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rocks on a Beach, Probably near Bude 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rocks on a Beach, Probably near Bude’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 63 Recto:
Rocks on a Beach, Probably near Bude 1811
D41345
Turner Bequest CXXV a 63
Pencil on white wove paper, 141 x 215 mm
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘63’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 63’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These appear to be the same or similar to the jagged, vertical sandstone formations on the Cornish coast near Wrangle Point, north of Bude, recorded on folio 40 recto (D41318), under which the setting and related works are described; see also folio 68 recto (D41350).
As discussed in the introduction, the pages of this ‘sketchbook’ appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Rocks on coast’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Aiguilles of rock’’.2 Figures usually corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of most sheets.
1
A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.356, as CXXV(a) 71.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356B, as CXXVa 63.
Technical notes:
The sheet is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘172 | 71’ top left, upside down; there is a notch cut out of the stub to which the leaf is attached, so as not to obscure these numbers. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet, and a dark stain towards the bottom of the left-hand edge.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Rocks on a Beach, Probably near Bude 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-rocks-on-a-beach-probably-near-bude-r1137493, accessed 27 June 2025.