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 Castle Cornet, Guernsey ?1832

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Castle Cornet, Guernsey’ ?1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 75 Recto:
Castle Cornet, Guernsey ?1832
D23663
Turner Bequest CCLII 75
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘75’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLII – 75’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
On this page, Turner worked up two sketches of the medieval fortress of Cornet Castle on its island in the bay of St Peter Port. For the key entry on this landmark, see folio 29 verso (D23575; Turner Bequest CCLII 29a). Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the top sketch also includes a view of the town rising up the harbour’s sheltering hills. Towards the top left-hand corner, the neo-Gothic tower of Elizabeth College1 and the cylindrical ‘Grecian Doric’ church steeple of St James-the-Less are featured.2 The town of St Peter Port is one of the major objects of study in this volume as outlined in the entry for folio 30 recto (D23576; Turner Bequest CCLII 30). A coastline of jagged rocks is sketched along the centre of the page of a type that abounds in the Channel Islands.

John Chu
April 2014

1
J.E. Collins, The Stranger’s Guide to the Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, Guernsey 1833, p.79.
2
J.T. Cochrane, A Guide to the Island of Guernsey, St Peter Port 1826, p.19.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Castle Cornet, 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-castle-cornet-guernsey-r1175155, accessed 20 September 2024.