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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Plymouth Sound: The Citadel, Mount Batten and Drake's Island 1813

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 270 Verso:
Plymouth Sound: The Citadel, Mount Batten and Drake’s Island 1813
D09466
Turner Bequest CXXXI 181a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 157 mm
Watermark ‘Ivy
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
On the right is the profile of Drake’s Island from the west, with Plymouth Citadel to the north-west on the extreme left and the tower of Mount Batten (to the left of the boat silhouetted against the morning light), on the eastern shore of Plymouth Sound. There is a similar view on folio 271 verso (D09468; CXXXI 182a).
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).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Plymouth Sound: The Citadel, Mount Batten and Drake’s 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-plymouth-sound-the-citadel-mount-batten-and-drakes-island-r1148196, accessed 18 September 2024.