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 The Sun Rising or Setting over the Sea, Perhaps at Margate; ?Buildings on Channel Cliffs 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Sun Rising or Setting over the Sea, Perhaps at Margate; ?Buildings on Channel Cliffs’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 107 Verso:
The Sun Rising or Setting over the Sea, Perhaps at Margate; ?Buildings on Channel Cliffs 1845
D35682
Turner Bequest CCCLXI 107a
Pencil on white wove paper, 86 x 111 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Gold D[...]’ top right, ‘Yellow’ left of centre, ‘[...]’ below centre, ‘C[...] B[...]’ bottom left, ‘[... ?B...]’ bottom centre, and ‘3 [... ?of w cliff]’ centre right, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The studies of the sun and clouds over the sea on folios 105 recto–108 recto (D35677–D35783) and inside the back cover (D41151) were perhaps all made from the vicinity of Mrs Booth’s house in Margate, looking north over the beach, a favourite vantage point for the artist (see for example the group of ‘Margate Beach Scenes’ in the ‘Margate, London and Surrey c.1829–45’ section of this catalogue). The lighthouse on the adjacent pier may be shown in D35681, and neighbouring Droit House in D35683. For other Margate views, see under folio 99 verso (D35666).
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the main study here, ‘broken into areas of colour’ as David Blayney Brown has put it,1 could equally well show the summer sun over the sea at Margate, rising in the north-east or setting in the north-west. The notes of ‘Gold’ and ‘Yellow’ might favour observations at dawn.
At the outer edge, with the page turned vertically, is a slight study, typical of many in this sketchbook which probably show Channel coastlines; see the Introduction.
1
Brown 1987, p.14.
Technical notes:
There is extensive brown staining, possibly indicating water damage in the 1928 Tate flood.

Matthew Imms
September 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Sun Rising or Setting over the Sea, Perhaps at Margate; ?Buildings on Channel Cliffs 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-the-sun-rising-or-setting-over-the-sea-perhaps-at-margate-r1184097, accessed 14 October 2025.