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

Drawn with the sketchbook inverted, and continued to the left on folio 129 (D06343). The view, fully described by Hill, is taken from a position downstream of Romney Lock, at the foot of Romney Lock Island; if Turner was working backwards through the sketchbook this double-spread closes a group beginning on folio 136 verso (D06358) with a view of Eton College Chapel from the tip of the island. Noting that the disc low in the sky on the left is the moon, and that this sketch follows another from much the same position but looking the other way towards Eton Chapel, in which the sun is setting, Hill concludes that Turner moored his boat here for the night. He further observes that the oil sketch known as ‘Windsor Castle from Salt Hill’ (Tate N02312)1 shows exactly the same view but widened to fit the low horizontal format of the wooden panel on which it is painted. Hill suggests it was painted the next day.2 For Gage’s dating of the sketchbook and related oil(s) to 1809–10, see Introduction to the sketchbook.