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 A Rocky Cove or Inlet in Cornwall or North Devon 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Rocky Cove or Inlet in Cornwall or North Devon’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 58 Recto:
A Rocky Cove or Inlet in Cornwall or North Devon 1811
D41339
Turner Bequest CXXV a 58
Pencil on white wove paper, 141 x 215 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘sand’ top centre and ‘[?Light green and land in ...]’ on a shallow diagonal towards top right
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘58’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 58’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Apparently seen from its seaward side, this small inlet with beached boats and scattered buildings beyond is currently unidentified, but given the rugged geology and the many North Cornwall and Devon coastal views elsewhere in this sketchbook, it is presumably in the same area. The separate detail at the top left shows houses with hills beyond, perhaps at the same location or nearby.
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 and Turner’s inscription as ‘Rocks on coast. “Lights green with Land ...”’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Rocky bay with shipping’.2 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) 73.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356B, as CXXVa 58.
Technical notes:
The sheet is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘174 | 73’ bottom right. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet, and some slight rubbing or offsetting.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Rocky Cove or Inlet 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-a-rocky-cove-or-inlet-in-cornwall-or-north-devon-r1137487, accessed 25 April 2024.