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 > Cornwall and Devon Sketchbook [pseudo ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Coastal Rocks, Probably in Cornwall or North Devon 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coastal Rocks, Probably in Cornwall or North Devon’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 20 Recto:
Coastal Rocks, Probably in Cornwall or North Devon 1811
D41295
Turner Bequest CXXV a 20
Pencil on white wove paper, 141 x 215 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘G’ or possibly ‘G I’ bottom centre and possibly with another word ascending diagonally towards centre left
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘20’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 20’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This rocky coastline is currently unidentified, but its formations are characteristic of those in identified views on the north coast of Cornwall elsewhere in this sketchbook.
As discussed in the introduction, the pages of this ‘sketchbook’ appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Cliffs’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Logan Rock’,2 although this seems doubtful – for identified other views around Treryn Dinas, the Logan Stone and Porth Curno, see under folio 17 recto (D41292). Figures usually corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of most sheets.
1
A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.356, as CXXV(a) 21.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356A, as CXXVa 20.
Technical notes:
The sheet is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘Logan Rock (?)’ bottom left; inscribed by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘120 | 21’ bottom right. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Coastal Rocks, Probably in Cornwall or North Devon 1811 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-coastal-rocks-probably-in-cornwall-or-north-devon-r1137443, accessed 18 April 2024.