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

Turner filled this page with sketches of rocky coastal forms, presumably recorded at various points around the Channel Islands. In the top half of the page are included the jagged forms of high cliffs of a type found on the islands of Alderney and particularly Sark, which was extensively studied in this sketchbook. Inverted in relation to the sketchbook as foliated, the distant land-masses and rocky protrusions featured in the bottom half of the page probably depict the treacherous reefs near Alderney known as The Caskets. ¹ For the recurrence of this geological phenomenon, see the listing under the entry for folio 90 recto (D23693; Turner Bequest CCLII 90).