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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern France 1832 > Guernsey Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner St Anne; The Caskets; Essex Castle, Alderney ?1832

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Anne; The Caskets; Essex Castle, Alderney’ ?1832
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 91 Verso:
St Anne; The Caskets; Essex Castle, Alderney ?1832
D23696
Turner Bequest CCLII 91a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘St ann’ towards top centre, ‘Caskets’ centre, ‘a[...]’ towards bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner filled this page with small sketches of scenery taken in and around Alderney in the Channel Islands. Turner’s note above the long land-mass second from the top of the page identifies the sketch as a distant view of the town of St Anne on the north coast of the island. Immediately below, the spiky row of protruding rocks is also identified by a note as the treacherous reef 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). In the bottom right-hand corner of the page, the round towers of Essex Castle are sketched alongside a kite trailing its streamers in flight. 2 This unfinished Elizabethan fortress recurs on folio 85 verso (D23684; Turner Bequest CCLII 85a).
1
J.T. Cochrane, A Guide to the Island of Guernsey, , St Peter Port 1826, p.138.
2
Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of England, London 1831, vol.II,.p.262.
Technical notes:
John Ruskin’s red ink inscription ‘92’ on folio 92 recto opposite (D23697; Turner Bequest CCLII 92), has transferred onto the top left-hand corner of this page. There is a patch of light brown discolouration in the top right-hand corner.

John Chu
April 2014

How to cite

John Chu, ‘St Anne; The Caskets; Essex Castle, Alderney ?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-st-anne-the-caskets-essex-castle-alderney-r1175188, accessed 25 April 2024.