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 > Ivy Bridge to Penzance Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Plymouth: The Citadel, St Andrew's Church and the Charles Church from Mount Batten 1811

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Plymouth: The Citadel, St Andrew's Church and the Charles Church from Mount Batten’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Verso:
Plymouth: The Citadel, St Andrew’s Church and the Charles Church from Mount Batten 1811
D08878
Turner Bequest CXXV 11a
Pencil on white wove paper, 166 x 208 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The composition spans the right-hand third of this page and the whole of folio 13 recto opposite (D08879; CXXV 12), with a narrow continuation on folio 14 recto (D08880; CXXV 13); for details of the viewpoint see under folio 13 recto.
Finberg notes that the triple-page sketch is the basis of the watercolour Plymouth, with Mount Batten of about 1816 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London),1 engraved in 1817 for the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England2 (see the concordance of the series in the 1811 tour introduction), although the right-hand continuation was not incorporated into the finished composition. Eric Shanes has noted that the sketch also informs the watercolour Plymouth of about 1825 (Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon),3 engraved in 1828 for the The Rivers of England, but not published until 1856 in The Harbours of England.4
This is one of a series of sketches of Plymouth and nearby districts, running from folio 3 recto (D08866; CXXV 2) to folio 14 recto (D08880; CXXV 13); see the entry for the first of these for other Plymouth views.
1
Wilton 1979, p.352 no.457, reproduced.
2
Finberg 1909, I, p.354; see also Wilton 1979, p.457, Shanes 1981, p.152, and Shanes 1997 p.91 note 2 under no.27.
3
Wilton 1979, p.388 no.760, reproduced.
4
Shanes 1981, p.152.
Technical notes:
A tear has been repaired at the top left.

Matthew Imms
February 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Plymouth: The Citadel, St Andrew’s Church and the Charles Church from Mount Batten 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-plymouth-the-citadel-st-andrews-church-and-the-charles-r1137359, accessed 24 April 2024.