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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Autumn Tour of Northern France 1845 > Dieppe and Kent Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of a Windmill near a Channel Coast, with Rain 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of a Windmill near a Channel Coast, with Rain’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 60 Verso:
Studies of a Windmill near a Channel Coast, with Rain 1845
D35594
Turner Bequest CCCLXI 60a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 86 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?L...]’ towards top left, ‘[?Sea Light | ...]’ above centre right and ‘Corn’ centre left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned vertically, there are two studies of the same scene divided by a horizontal pencil line, with windmills and distant towers, Channel cliffs and the sea beyond. The doubling seems to have been for the sake of catching transient effects of light as rainclouds pass over.
See the sketchbook’s Introduction for the many slight coastal and shipping views and inscribed studies of clouds and the sun over the sea scattered through it.
Technical notes:
There is some brown staining at the gutter, possibly indicating water damage in the 1928 Tate flood.

Matthew Imms
September 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Studies of a Windmill near a Channel Coast, with Rain 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2016, 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-studies-of-a-windmill-near-a-channel-coast-with-rain-r1184013, accessed 06 May 2025.