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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Views on the Coast of the Isle of Wight near Ryde 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
Views on the Coast of the Isle of Wight near Ryde 1827
D20735
Turner Bequest CCXXVII 2
Pencil on white wove paper prepared with a grey wash, 110 x 185 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘2’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVII – 2’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, with two main views showing similar stretches of wooded shoreline. The upper is labelled ‘Ryde’, indicating the town on the north-east coast of the Isle of Wight, about seven miles east of island base at East Cowes Castle (see folio 16 verso; D20757). At the centre left is a separate study of the façade of a house, presumably in the same area. The building with Gothic tracery towards the bottom left and the other below it may be parts of Quarr Abbey, near the coast about a mile west of Ryde, since heavily rebuilt although some battered ruins still stand; compare The Remains of Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight, Hants. The Property of John Fleming Esq., an engraving of about 1780 by Richard Godfrey.
There are other sketch in the neighbourhood of Ryde on folios 11 verso (D20750) and 43 verso (D20800; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 41a), and perhaps on folio 3 verso (D20738), and a view from the sea in the contemporary Windsor and Cowes, Isle of Wight sketchbook (Tate D20629; Turner Bequest CCXXVI 20a). Other likely island views are on folios 4 recto, 27 recto, 28 recto (D20739, D20774, D20776), 29 recto, 33 verso, 34 recto and 39 recto (D20803, D20781, D20783, D20791; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 43, 31, 32, 37); see also folio 34 verso (D20784; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 32a).
Technical notes:
There is some scratching out revealing the white paper through the fluid grey ground in the upper view, possibly to indicate figures.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Views on the Coast of the Isle of Wight near Ryde 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-views-on-the-coast-of-the-isle-of-wight-near-ryde-r1182602, accessed 28 March 2024.