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

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.