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 ?The Gosport Blockhouse ?1824

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Gosport Blockhouse’ ?1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Verso:
?The Gosport Blockhouse ?1824
D17930
Turner Bequest CCVI 9a
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 subject of the three slight here may be the north-east end of the Gosport blockhouse at the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, with a warship moored beyond and the Portsmouth side to the right, or other nearby defences.
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); in each, the Gosport blockhouse appears on the left.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
See Butlin, Wilton and Gage 1974, p.94, re Ports and Southern Coast, Wilton 1979, p.387, re Ports, and Shanes 2001, p.159, re Ports.
2
Wilton 1979, p.354 no.477, reproduced.
3
Ibid., p.387 no.756, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?The Gosport Blockhouse ?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-the-gosport-blockhouse-r1172647, accessed 19 April 2024.