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 1813 > Plymouth, Hamoaze Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Rock Arch on Burgh Island 1813

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Rock Arch on Burgh Island’ 1813
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 259 Verso:
A Rock Arch on Burgh Island 1813
D09444
Turner Bequest CXXXI 170a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 157 mm
 
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. The island is well known today for its art deco hotel, and this and the drawing on D09446 appear to show the rock arch nearby at the east end of the island, beside the hotel’s natural ‘swimming pool’ cordoned off from the sea. Turner has recorded the outlines and strata of the rocks in some detail, using hatching and dark shading to a degree unusual for him.

Matthew Imms
April 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Rock Arch 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-a-rock-arch-on-burgh-island-r1148174, accessed 20 September 2024.