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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Abbotsford Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Coast of Berwick-upon-Tweed 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Coast of Berwick-upon-Tweed’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 34 Verso:
The Coast of Berwick-upon-Tweed 1831
D25985
Turner Bequest CCLXVII 34a
Pencil on off-white wove writing paper, 113 x 185 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Across the current page and folio 35 (D25986; CCLXVII 35) are sketches of the Tweed estuary at Berwick-upon-Tweed. The study of the lighthouse at the top of the page is recognisable as the lighthouse at the end of the pier or breakwater at Berwick. Beneath it is a view which seems to be looking downstream along the estuary. A group of figures in the foreground are shown pulling in a fishing net, represented by an oval of dotted lines. This scene was incorporated into the bottom right corner of Turner’s watercolour Berwick-upon-Tweed circa 1832 (whereabouts unknown).1 The sketch continues slightly on folio 35. At the bottom of the page is a similar scene, again showing figures and a boat on the coast.
For more information of Turner’s visit to Berwick, see folio 48 verso (D26009; CCLXVII 48a).

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.430 no.1092.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Coast of Berwick-upon-Tweed 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2009, 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-the-coast-of-berwick-upon-tweed-r1134355, accessed 20 September 2024.