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

On this page Turner worked two sketches of the coastal terrain in the eastern part of Guernsey. The upper sketch depicts the view north along the cliffs towards St Peter Port from 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 The shaft of the monument’s high column can be seen bisecting the landscape towards the top left-hand corner.

Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the lower sketch features a view of the medieval fortress of Castle Cornet defending St Peter Port from its island in the bay.2 The eighteenth-century barracks of Fort George can be seen perched atop the hills rising steeply to the south. For the recurrence of this defensive complex in the sketchbook, see the entry for folio 29 verso (D23575; Turner Bequest CCLII 29a).

Technical notes:

There are patches of light brown discolouration in the bottom left-hand corner. A light red ink ‘88’ in the bottom left-hand corner has transferred from folio 88 recto opposite (D23689; Turner Bequest CCLII 88).