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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Richmond Hill; Hastings to Margate ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dover from Shakespeare Cliff c.1816-19

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dover from Shakespeare Cliff’ c.1816-19
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Verso:
Dover from Shakespeare Cliff circa 1816–19
D10473
Turner Bequest CXL 33a
Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Path’ within image, lower left, ‘Rope walk’ and ‘sea shore’ lower right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This outline sketch looking from Shakespeare Cliff towards Dover and the castle beyond is perhaps the first hint of the watercolour (currently untraced)1 engraved by George Cooke in 1826 for Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England. However, there is a similar view in the later Holland sketchbook (Tate D18843; Turner Bequest CCXIV 2) which may have served more directly. Turner is positioned near the defences on the Western Heights, strengthened during the Napoleonic War to protect the harbour. Left of centre is the wooden bridge from the cliff path across a moat to the gun emplacements, which Turner brought to the fore in the watercolour.

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.355 no.483.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Dover from Shakespeare Cliff c.1816–19 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-dover-from-shakespeare-cliff-r1131463, accessed 26 April 2024.