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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Marseilles to Genoa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner View of the Coastline near Roquebrune, Cap Martin and Menton 1828

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of the Coastline near Roquebrune, Cap Martin and Menton’ 1828
Folio 21 Verso:
View of the Coastline near Roquebrune, Cap Martin and Menton 1828
D21174
Turner Bequest CCXXXI 21a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 174 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘R[?acabel]’ centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner travelled the last few miles through France to Liguria by following the steep ‘corniche’ road built by Napoleon which winds its ways along the dramatic mountainous coastline. With the page turned horizontally, this sketch depicts a view of the coast between Roquebrune, a ‘village perchée’ visible in the centre, and the distant Italian shoreline near Ventimiglia and Bordighera.1 Visible in the centre is Menton, near the present-day Franco-Italian border.
The artist has made a separate rough, but nonetheless recognisable, drawing of the topographical profile of Roquebrune (present-day Roquebrune-Cap-Martin) at the bottom left.2 For further sketches see folios 22 recto–23 verso (D21175–D21178).
1
Guillaud, Alfrey, Wilton and others 1981, p.286, and Roland Courtot, ‘Les Carnets de William Turner: Recherches d’identification et de localisation des dessins’, unpublished research notes, Université de Provence à Aix, April 2008, p.4, as ‘Roquebrune’ (shared with former Tate cataloguer Nicola Moorby in email correspondence at that date).
2
Courtot 2008, ibid.
Technical notes:
A few millimetres appear to be missing beyond a jagged diagonal at the top right corner (the top left as foliated). While this may be a loss incurred during Turner’s use of the sketchbook, it could well be part of the unfinished edge of the original sheet folded and trimmed to form the present gathering; compare the much larger ‘missing’ sections of the preceding leaf, folio 19 (D21169–D21170).

Nicola Moorby
March 2017

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of the Coastline near Roquebrune, Cap Martin and Menton 1828’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/view-of-the-coastline-near-roquebrune-cap-martin-and-menton-r1209852, accessed 13 December 2025.