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 The North Devon Coast near Combe Martin 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The North Devon Coast near Combe Martin’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Verso:
The North Devon Coast near Combe Martin 1811
D41319
Turner Bequest CXXV a 40a
Pencil on white wove paper, 140 x 215 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Sea’ on horizon towards bottom left and ‘Whether cloud or land I cannot tell | Comb Martin Point’ towards bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘170 | 69’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
‘Comb[e] Martin Point’ is not marked as such on modern Ordnance Survey maps and specific references are few, although a recent conservation publication uses the term, roughly indicating its position as to the east of Combe Martin Bay,1 and it may be synonymous with Hangman Point. Turner’s viewpoint would then be the Widmouth area on the west side of the bay, looking east along the Devon coast, and the cliff profiles he identifies are probably those of Hangman Point and Blackstone Point. The two narrow, horizontal bands above remain ambiguous, and may be profiles of nearby coastlines or of clouds, as Turner’s puzzled note to himself indicates; whether the inscription is contemporary, reflecting awkward weather or lighting conditions, or retrospective is not clear.
Turner had previously sketched at Ilfracombe, a few miles to the west (see under folio 37; D41314), and Combe Martin appears to be the most north-easterly of the sites covered by this sketchbook. There is a slight overlap with the contemporary Somerset and North Devon sketchbook, where there is a last sketch of Ilfracombe (Tate D08947; Turner Bequest CXXVI 2) and views of the harbour at Combe Martin (see under Tate D08949; Turner Bequest CXXVI 4).
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 through Turner’s inscription as ‘Coast scene – “Whether clouds or ... (?land) I cannot tell.” “Comb Martin Point.”’ in a manuscript listing,2 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as simply ‘“Combe Martin Point”’.3 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
See ‘The North Devon Coast: North Devon Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty: Management Strategy 2009–14’, p.42, North Devon Coast: Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, accessed 9 June 2011, http://www.northdevoncoast.org.uk/pdf/management_strategy.pdf.
2
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) 69 Reverse.
3
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 40a.
Technical notes:
The sheet is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet, and rubbing down the right-hand side which appears to mirror damage to folio 37 verso (D41315), a sketch of Ilfracombe, suggesting that the pages were once adjacent and accidentally stuck together.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The North Devon Coast near Combe Martin 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-the-north-devon-coast-near-combe-martin-r1137467, accessed 24 May 2025.