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 Petit Bot Bay, Guernsey ?1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Petit Bot Bay, Guernsey’ ?1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 82 Recto:
Petit Bot Bay, Guernsey ?1832
D23677
Turner Bequest CCLII 82
Pencil on white wove paper, 187 x 114 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Tippo’ top centre, ‘Doyle’ towards top right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘82’ top right running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLII – 82’ top right running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned vertically, Turner filled the top half of this page with views of craggy coastal scenery. The small sketch in the top left-hand corner records a small view of Petit Bot Bay on the south coast of Guernsey. Art historian Ian Warrell proposes that Turner’s note ‘Tippo’ in the midst of the cliffs is a phonetic spelling of Petit Bot in the local pronunciation.1 The bay recurs in this volume on folio 80 verso (D23674; Turner Bequest CCLII 80a).
The note reading ‘Doyle’ towards the top left-hand corner of the page may refer to the vertical structure immediately above, identifying it as the column of the Doyle Monument. This structure had been raised to the south-east of the island to commemorate Sir John Doyle who served as the island’s Lieutenant Governor during the Napoleonic Wars.2 Alternatively this inscription may relate to the stout complex of structures immediately beneath, locating them to Fort Doyle on the island’s north-east shore.3

John Chu
April 2014

1
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.44.
2
J.T. Cochrane, A Guide to the Island of Guernsey, St Peter Port 1826, pp.69–70.
3
The Stranger’s Guide to the Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, Guernsey 1833, p.14.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Petit Bot Bay, 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-petit-bot-bay-guernsey-r1175169, accessed 23 April 2024.