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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Guernsey Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner St Sampson Harbour, Guernsey ?1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Sampson Harbour, Guernsey’ ?1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 51 Verso:
St Sampson Harbour, Guernsey ?1832
D23616
Turner Bequest CCLII 51a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Sark [?Jethou]’ centre left, ‘Sampson Harbour’ towards bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page features sketches of the terrain around St Sampson Harbour, located on the east coast of Guernsey. At the centre of the page is a panoramic view across the bay, with one of the island’s distinctive eighteenth-century ‘loophole’ towers to the right-hand side.1 Turner’s notes identify the islands to the left as Sark and Jethou. Beneath this, another sketch depicts the harbour itself, featuring clusters of ships’ masts and harbour buildings. Inverted in relation to sketchbook as foliated, the top of this page features sloping coastal topography viewed from a high vantage. Sketches of St Sampson Harbour recur on folios 28 verso (D23573; Turner Bequest CCLII 28a); 29 recto (D23574; Turner Bequest CCLII 29); and 74 verso (D23662; Turner Bequest CCLII 74a).

John Chu
April 2014

1
See E.J. Grimsley, The Historical Development of the Martello Tower in the Channel Islands, Castel 1988, p.57; also W.H. Clements, Towers of Strength: the story of the Martello towers, Barnsley 1999, p.85.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘St Sampson Harbour, Guernsey ?1832 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, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-st-sampson-harbour-guernsey-r1175108, accessed 19 April 2024.