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 Rye from the Winchelsea Road c.1816-19

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rye from the Winchelsea Road’ c.1816-19
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 61 Verso:
Rye from the Winchelsea Road circa 1816–19
D10515
Turner Bequest CXL 54a
Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here, Turner is looking towards Rye from the Royal Military Road (built 1804–9) from Winchelsea. He combined this view with another on folio 62 of the sketchbook (D10516; Turner Bequest CXL 55), looking towards Camber Castle, to make up the composition of his watercolour (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff)1 engraved by Edward Goodall in 1824 for Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England. The watercolour brings the castle closer to Rye and makes the town higher than it is in reality, and invents building work to link an extension of the canal to the River Brede. The most direct source for the watercolour is in the Hastings sketchbook (Tate D10369–D10370; Turner Bequest CXXXIX 21a–22), perhaps developed from the sketches here.

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, pp.353–4 no.471.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Rye from the Winchelsea Road 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-rye-from-the-winchelsea-road-r1131509, accessed 25 April 2024.