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 Rocks on the Beach at Bude, Looking towards Lower Sharpnose Point 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rocks on the Beach at Bude, Looking towards Lower Sharpnose Point’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 68 Recto:
Rocks on the Beach at Bude, Looking towards Lower Sharpnose Point 1811
D41350
Turner Bequest CXXV a 68
Pencil on white wove paper, 140 x 215 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?corn]’ left of centre
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘68’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 68’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Like the views on folios 40 recto and 63 recto (D41318, D41345), this drawing appears to show the jagged sandstone rocks at the north end of Bude’s beach, looking north along the Devon coast towards Lower Sharpnose Point; the setting and possible related works are discussed under the first sketch mentioned above. There is a separate detail of convoluted strata at the top right. For other views of Bude, see under folio 35 recto (D41311).
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’ in a manuscript listing,1 as did C.F. Bell in his own notes.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) 70.
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 68.
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 ‘170 | 70’ bottom right. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Rocks on the Beach at Bude, Looking towards Lower Sharpnose Point 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-rocks-on-the-beach-at-bude-looking-towards-lower-sharpnose-r1137498, accessed 25 April 2024.