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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Cottages on Burgh Island 1813

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 257 Verso:
Cottages on Burgh Island 1813
D09440
Turner Bequest CXXXI 168a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 157 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Sea]’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, this drawing is part of a sequence working in from the back cover of the sketchbook, which correlates with accounts of a voyage Turner and others made from Plymouth south-east to Burgh Island, returning by land towards Plymouth. The sequence begins on folio 275 (D09476; Turner Bequest CXXXI 186a), under which the overall trip is discussed, and may extend as far as folio 228 verso (Tate D09382; Turner Bequest CXXXI 139a).
The sketches between folios 260 verso and 253 verso (D09446 and D09432; CXXXI 171a, 164a) show Burgh Island, just off the coast at Bigbury-on-Sea, as discussed under D09446. Here a cluster of small buildings is shown on the north-east side of the island, below the future site of the art deco hotel, with the mainland beyond.

Matthew Imms
April 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Cottages on Burgh Island 1813 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-cottages-on-burgh-island-r1148170, accessed 26 April 2024.