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 Compass Point, Bude 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Compass Point, Bude’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 70 Recto:
Compass Point, Bude 1811
D41352
Turner Bequest CXXV a 70
Pencil on white wove paper, 142 x 215 mm
Inscribed by Turner ‘G’ centre left
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘70’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 70’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Compass Point and the Devon coast to the south are seen from Bude’s beach. The sketch is effectively a detail of the left-hand side of the study on folio 35 verso (D41312); for other Bude views 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 ‘Rocks on coast, with watch tower. Prbly near Boscastle’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Rocky coast’.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) 66.
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 70.
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 ‘166 | 66’ bottom right. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Compass Point, Bude 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-compass-point-bude-r1137500, accessed 20 April 2024.