Joseph Mallord William Turner Yarmouth Quay c.1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Yarmouth Quay c.1824
D18204
Turner Bequest CCIX 25
Turner Bequest CCIX 25
Pencil on white wove paper, 115 x 118 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘5 or 10 miles’ top left, ‘[p...]’ top left, ‘B [...] Y F Y de Y B B Y’ centre towards top left, ‘[?Cammel Hay]’, ‘R[...] | c[...] Arms | crown’ top centre, ‘Star M | S Bernard’ top centre towards right, ‘Star [...] C B[...]’ (inverted) near bottom right
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘5 or 10 miles’ top left, ‘[p...]’ top left, ‘B [...] Y F Y de Y B B Y’ centre towards top left, ‘[?Cammel Hay]’, ‘R[...] | c[...] Arms | crown’ top centre, ‘Star M | S Bernard’ top centre towards right, ‘Star [...] C B[...]’ (inverted) near bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.632, CCIX 25, as ‘Buildings, shipping &c.’.
1979
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.394 under no.810.
1990
Frank Milner, J.M.W. Turner: Paintings in Merseyside Collections: Walker Art Gallery; Sudley Art Gallery; Williamson Art Gallery; Lady Lever Art Gallery; Liverpool University Art Gallery, Liverpool 1990, p.75 under no.39.
Here Turner has produced two detailed views of the quay at Yarmouth in Norfolk. With the sketchbook turned upside down he depicts the South Quay, with a canopy-covered fishing boat being navigated by a sailor in the foreground. There is an elegant building at right, decorated with fine moldings, rusticated window arches, pilasters and columns. This is most probably Yarmouth’s Town Hall erected in 1716 and remodeled in the late nineteenth century.1 Turner’s prospect is inscribed with annotations, some of which are legible. They include colour notes such as ‘Y’ which presumably signifies yellow, a note on distances: ‘5 or 10 miles’, and ‘Star M S Bernard’ which may possibly refer to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux’s invocation of the Virgin Mary as ‘Star of the Sea’. The inscriptions are transcribed in full above.
The sketch at rear is orientated in accordance with the foliation. In it Turner records shipping moored at Yarmouth Harbour.
Further sketches of the quay are found on Tate D18194–D18196, D18202–D18203; Turner Bequest CCIX 20–21, 24–24a. Turner’s sketches of Yarmouth are associated with designs for both the England and Wales (Tate impression T04547) and East Coast engraving schemes, though the latter design, housed at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, was unpublished.2
Alice Rylance-Watson
January 2015
How to cite
Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Yarmouth Quay c.1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2016, https://www