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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Thames, London and South of England 1821 ... > London Bridge and Portsmouth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Boats off Southsea Castle ?1824

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boats off Southsea Castle’ ?1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Verso:
Boats off Southsea Castle ?1824
D17926
Turner Bequest CCVI 7a
Pencil on white wove paper, 160 x 100 mm
Watermark ‘1821’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned vertically, the top study shows a coastal profile with the Tudor castle at Southsea, at the southern tip of the Portsmouth peninsula. There seems to be a slight coastal sketch immediately below, and then another which may show a different aspect of Southsea or nearby defences. Sailing boats are seen manoeuvring off the shore, and at the centre of the page is a study of another boat in isolation.
This is one of a continuous series of views around Portsmouth between folios 1 recto and 20 recto (D17913–D17951); many appear to have been made from a boat; for the overall sequence and details of the most prominent buildings and defences, see the Introduction. This page has been linked1 to the watercolours Portsmouth of about 1824 (Lady Lever Art Galley, Port Sunlight),2 engraved in 1825 for Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England (Tate impressions: T04419, T05302–T05304, T05994), and Portsmouth of about 1824–5 (Tate D18152; Turner Bequest CCVIII S),3 engraved in 1828 for The Ports of England, and reissued in 1856 in The Harbours of England (Tate impressions: T04833, T04834), but the connection in this case is only a generalised one.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
See Shanes 1981, p.153.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.354 no.477, reproduced.
3
Ibid., p.387 no.756, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Boats off Southsea Castle ?1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-boats-off-southsea-castle-r1172643, accessed 25 April 2024.