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

On this page the sun is shown low over a body of water. It is difficult to determine whether the sun is rising or setting. Positioned just to the left of the centre of the composition, the sun is partly obscured by a bank of low, pink-tinged clouds. Washes of orange and pale blue paint cover the rest of the upper section of the page. Turner evokes a grassy shore in the lower section of the sheet using washes of light brown and short jagged strokes of green paint.

There are visual similarities to the rectos of folios 42 and 45 (D12490, D12493), as well as to some of the works featured in Matthew Imms’s parallel ‘Colour Studies of the Sun and Clouds at Dawn and Sunset c.1815–40’ subsection of the present catalogue.

See the sketchbook’s Introduction for general notes on possible locations and dating.

Technical notes:

The Whatman watermark is particularly visible on this leaf, somewhat disrupting the composition where the sky’s pale washes have pooled in its outlines.

Verso:

Blank, save for grey marks on the right-hand side of the sheet, likely offset from folio 53 recto opposite (D12501).