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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ilfracombe from the Torrs 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 61 Recto:
Ilfracombe from the Torrs 1811
D41342
Turner Bequest CXXV a 61
Pencil on white wove paper, 141 x 215 mm
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘61’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 61’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s viewpoint is the slopes of the Torrs, west of Ilfracombe, looking east along the coast to the town. The tower of Holy Trinity Church is seen towards the right, with Widmouth Hill in the distance above it. To the left of the centre is St Nicholas’s Chapel on Lantern Hill above the harbour, with Hillsborough and Rillage Point on the far side and the coast beyond Combe Martin in the distance. There is a view towards Lundy, in the opposite direction, on the verso (D41343), and a similar view from nearer the town on folio 88 verso (D41371). See under folio 37 recto (D41314) for other Ilfracombe views.
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 ‘Rocky coast from cliffs’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it similarly in his own notes as ‘Rocky cliffs’.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) 67.
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 61.
Technical notes:
The sheet has been creased at the bottom edge. There are glue stains at the corners and it is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Ilfracombe from the Torrs 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-ilfracombe-from-the-torrs-r1137490, accessed 28 March 2024.