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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Margate, London and Surrey c.1829-45 > Marine Dabblers Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Figures on a Seashore; Studies of the Sun over the Sea, Perhaps at Margate c.1829-30

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Figures on a Seashore; Studies of the Sun over the Sea, Perhaps at Margate’ c.1829-30
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 52 Recto:
Figures on a Seashore; Studies of the Sun over the Sea, Perhaps at Margate c.1829–30
D22521
Turner Bequest CCXLI 52
Pencil on gilt-edged white wove paper, 89 x 113 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘orange’ top left, ‘[?evening on A ...] | along a [?Rd]’ top right, ‘two Light | 1 and 2 [?Rfn ...]’ towards top left, ‘Ev Star red clear sky’ centre, and ‘Dark [...]’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘52’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXLI – 52’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, Turner has made a series of rapid studies of the sun and figures on a seashore, perhaps at Margate; for others in this sketchbook, see the Introduction. There is a succession of studies of the sun over the sea down the left-hand side and another at the bottom centre. From the scattered inscriptions, this was evidently towards sunset.
Turner also mentions the presence of the ‘Ev Star’, bringing to mind the unfinished, elegiac painting The Evening Star, of about 1830 (Turner Bequest, National Gallery, London),1 a near-empty beach scene. For more on this theme, see the entry for the draft of poetry concerning ‘The first pale Star of Eve ere Twylight comes’ in the Worcester and Shrewsbury sketchbook, in use in or around 1831 (Tate D22279; Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 70).
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.284–5 no.453, pl.454 (colour).
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
May 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Figures on a Seashore; Studies of the Sun over the Sea, Perhaps at Margate c.1829–30 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-figures-on-a-seashore-studies-of-the-sun-over-the-sea-r1148413, accessed 19 April 2024.