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 St Petroc's Church, Trevalga, Looking towards Boscastle 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Petroc's Church, Trevalga, Looking towards Boscastle’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 81 Recto:
St Petroc’s Church, Trevalga, Looking towards Boscastle 1811
D41363
Turner Bequest CXXV a 81
Pencil on white wove paper, 140 x 215 mm
Faint embossed stamp ‘BATH | [crown] | VELLUM’ within oval cartouche
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ’81.’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 81’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
St Petroc’s Church, in the hamlet of Trevalga, east of Bossiney, is seen from the south-west, with the Cornish coast towards Boscastle beyond. The lookout tower above Boscastle’s harbour (see folios 55 verso, 71 recto; D41336, D41353) is in the distance towards the left. For other views near Bossiney see under folio 31 recto (D41307).
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 ‘Coast Scene: Cornwall’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Coast with two square towers’.2 Figures differing from Bell’s sequence are inscribed on the verso of most sheets; they usually correspond with the pagination given in Finberg’s MS catalogue, but here and in a few other cases the numbers do not match, so a tentative connection has been made with Finberg’s sequence on the basis of his descriptive title.
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) 1.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356C, as CXXVa 81.
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 ‘168 | 68’ bottom right. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘St Petroc’s Church, Trevalga, Looking towards Boscastle 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-st-petrocs-church-trevalga-looking-towards-boscastle-r1137511, accessed 16 April 2024.