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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Hilly Views, Perhaps on a West Country Coast or near Glastonbury 1811

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Hilly Views, Perhaps on a West Country Coast or near Glastonbury’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 158 Verso:
Hilly Views, Perhaps on a West Country Coast or near Glastonbury 1811
D08659
Turner Bequest CXXIII 155a
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 75 x 117 mm
Part watermark ‘Sm | 17’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘G[...]’ centre right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Whether this is a sketch in part or wholly of a coast, as Finberg thought, is unclear. It appears to be in at least two main sections: one view along the top, where the horizontal shading at the centre may indicate the sea; another across the middle, with a hill on the right with a tiny vertical feature at its summit (to which the inscription, possibly reading ‘Glas’ or ‘Glast’, as in Glastonbury, may refer – see also folio 122 verso; D08595; CXXIII 119a); and perhaps a third below, which may be a very slight sketch of a wooded landscape.
Technical notes:
There is a prominent brown stain at the bottom left, which seems to have been offset from folio 159 recto opposite (D08660; CXXIII 156).

Matthew Imms
June 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Hilly Views, Perhaps on a West Country Coast or near Glastonbury 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-hilly-views-perhaps-on-a-west-country-coast-or-near-r1137137, accessed 10 May 2024.