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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Isle of Wight 1827 > Windsor and Cowes, Isle of Wight ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Yachts under Sail off Norris Castle 1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Yachts under Sail off Norris Castle’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 55 Recto:
Yachts under Sail off Norris Castle 1827
D20681
Turner Bequest CCXXVI 52b
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 192 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘988’ bottom left
Inscribed in two different hands in pencil ‘52b’ and ‘52b’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVI – 52b’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Most of the page is taken up with a view of Norris Castle (see under folio 40 recto (D20658; Turner Bequest CCXXVI 38) from the Solent, which continues to the left across folio 54 verso opposite (D20680; Turner Bequest CCXXVI 52a), where numerous yachts are seen, with the distant coast towards Ryde beyond. At the outer third of the present page, turned vertically, is another view of the castle from a similar angle, separated by a pencil lines; this time yachts pass directly in front of it.
For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events at Cowes from late July 1827 onwards, see the Introduction.
This leaf was not mentioned except in terms of its absence in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory, when he noted a ‘Leaf torn out’ at this point.1 He subsequently identified the page (re)inserted here as ‘52b. Two views of Cowes [sic] Castle’, among ‘3 leaves found after Invy. was printed’2 (see the concordance in the Introduction). It evidently belongs here since the drawing continues on the opposite page. It may have been removed to display the nautical studies on the verso (D41017).

Matthew Imms
November 2015

1
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.697.
2
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, II, opposite pp.697, 695.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Yachts under Sail off Norris Castle 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-yachts-under-sail-off-norris-castle-r1183322, accessed 04 April 2026.