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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of Sunset Skies with a Windmill, ?at Boulogne 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of Sunset Skies with a Windmill, ?at Boulogne’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 248 Recto:
Studies of Sunset Skies with a Windmill, ?at Boulogne 1825
D19332
Turner Bequest CCXIV 248
Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Yellow’ and ‘Blue’ top left, ‘Purple | [?sky Light] red’ towards top centre, ‘Grey Blue over Yellow | Red Cloud’ above centre, ‘o[...] Sky | yellow [...]’ centre right, ‘yellow’ and ‘Grey [?sky]’ below left of centre, and ‘Red | V[?ery] Dark Blue and Yelw’ below centre, towards bottom
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘48’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXIV – 248’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, there are several bands of studies showing stages of a sunset in a cloudy sky, with characteristic notes of colour and light effects and the sun itself shown once, towards the top left. The word beginning with ‘o’ above the windmill is elusive, and comparable to one beside slighter sunset studies on folio 240 verso (D19317), which Finberg read as ‘Ostend’, as discussed in that entry.
Here, the setting is likely Boulogne, shown on previous pages (see under folio 241 verso; D19319), although the windmill is the only landmark. There is a views from inland with the sun sinking over the sea in the contemporary Holland, Meuse and Cologne sketchbook (Tate D19537; Turner Bequest CCXV 80a), and windmills are seen above the harbour on folios 243 verso and 244 verso (D19323, D19325).

Matthew Imms
September 2020

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Studies of Sunset Skies with a Windmill, ?at Boulogne 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-studies-of-sunset-skies-with-a-windmill-at-boulogne-r1202684, accessed 13 December 2025.