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

Turner filled this page with small sketches of scenery on the east coast of Guernsey, focusing particularly on the town of St Peter Port. In the top register, an apparently continuous view of the town runs from the hills surrounding the harbour on the left to the island fortress of Castle Cornet on the right. Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the sketched passages at the bottom of the page include another view of Castle Cornet on the right and, on the left, coastal buildings and the stern of a boat identified in an inscription by Turner as a ship-builder’s yard. For the recurrence of Castle Cornet and St Peter Port in this sketchbook, see the entries for folios 29 verso (D23575; Turner Bequest CCLII 29a) and 30 recto (D23576; Turner Bequest CCLII 30

The undulating hills topped off with a tall structure, also inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, presumably represents the landscape to the south of St Peter Port in the vicinity of the Doyle Monument. This structure had been raised to commemorate Sir John Doyle who served as the island’s Lieutenant Governor during the Napoleonic Wars.1