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

Here Turner depicts Yarmouth on the Norfolk coast; the sketches were executed with the book turned upside down. The uppermost view shows the monument to Admiral Nelson at right (see Tate D18212; Turner Bequest CCIX 29). At centre and at rear are sketches of Yarmouth and its medieval town walls and towers (the central view appears to continue onto the folio opposite: Tate D18213; Turner Bequest CCIX 29a). These fortifications date from 1261 when King Henry II granted Yarmouth the right to enclose itself with a wall and ditch for the purposes of defence and levying taxes.1 Blackfriars’ Tower is depicted here in some detail, built from local flints and pebbles in a chequerboard pattern. Turner’s sketches 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T04547) and East Coast engraving schemes, though the latter design, housed at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, was unpublished.2