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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Farnley Hall and Yorkshire c.1808-24 > Scarborough 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Scarborough from the South; Study of ?Seaweed c.1816-18

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  • Inside front cover of sketchbook
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Scarborough from the South; Study of ?Seaweed’ c.1816-18 (Inside front cover of sketchbook)
Inside front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Front Cover:
Scarborough from the South; Study of ?Seaweed c.1816–18
D40710
Pen and ink and pencil on laid paper, 116 x 182 mm
Endorsed by the Executors of the Turner Bequest in ink ‘No. 169’; signed by Henry Scott Trimmer in ink ‘H. S. Trimmer’ and by Charles Turner in ink ‘C. Turner’ and initialled by Charles Lock Eastlake in pencil ‘C.L.E’ by John Prescott Knight ‘J.P.K’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘5 taken out JR’
Inscribed by an unknown hand in pencil ‘CLI’
Stamped in brown ‘CLI’ right, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main sketch is a hurried and rather schematic rendering of Scarborough from the south. This is related in general terms to a finished watercolour of Scarborough (private collection)1 dated 1818. The closest sketch to the final composition also occurs in the present sketchbook (D11971; Turner Bequest CLI 17a) and this in turn is related to a sketch from a slightly different viewpoint in the Scarborough 1 sketchbook (Tate D11924; Turner Bequest CL 8).
An even more schematic note towards the top of the page appears to represent a frond of seaweed.

David Hill
September 2008

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.360 no.529.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Scarborough from the South; Study of ?Seaweed c.1816–18 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2008, 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-scarborough-from-the-south-study-of-seaweed-r1146974, accessed 25 April 2024.