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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Margate, London and Surrey c.1829-45 > Margate Beach Scenes > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Storm Clouds, Perhaps over Fort Point, Margate c.1829-45

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Storm Clouds, Perhaps over Fort Point, Margate’ c.1829-45
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Storm Clouds, Perhaps over Fort Point, Margate c.1829–45
D25340
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 218
Watercolour on white wove paper, 193 x 277 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below left of centre
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 218’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
If actually intended topographically, these brightly lit chalk cliffs, reserved as bare white paper against the fluid washes of the distant rainstorm, may represent Fort Point, at the eastern end of the Great Beach at Margate, as Eric Shanes has tentatively suggested.1 For more details of the Margate setting, see the Introduction to this subsection. Compare the even more loosely handled beach scene evoked in Tate D25354 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 232).
1
See Shanes 1997, p.99.
Technical notes:
The smudges towards the bottom right may be indistinct finger marks.
Verso:
Blank

How to cite

‘Storm Clouds, Perhaps over Fort Point, Margate c.1829–45 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-storm-clouds-perhaps-over-fort-point-margate-r1183887, accessed 26 April 2024.