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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Vale Castle, Guernsey ?1832

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 84 Recto:
Vale Castle, Guernsey ?1832
D23681
Turner Bequest CCLII 84
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Partial watermark ‘YMAN | 28’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘De [?Vally] Mount’ towards top left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘84’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLII – 84’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner filled this page with small sketches of coastal scenery, some of them certainly taken in the northern part of Guernsey. Towards the top left-hand corner is included a view of Castle Vale just north of St Sampson Harbour, identifiable by its round towers and curtain wall.1 Immediately beneath this sketch is a cursory drawing of a landscape profile punctuated by a tower. Turner’s semi-decipherable note of ‘De [Vally] Mount’, may locate this view in the Clos Du Valle area of Guernsey on the northern shore of St Sampson Harbour. In the top right-hand corner, Turner cursorily recorded a view of coastal hills punctuated by architectural structures and, with the sketchbook turned vertically, a collection of waterside buildings.

John Chu
April 2014

1
J.T. Cochrane, A Guide to the Island of Guernsey, St Peter Port 1826, p.99.

How to cite

John Chu, ‘Vale Castle, 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-vale-castle-guernsey-r1175173, accessed 20 September 2024.