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

Here Turner has drawn a prospect of Brighton, taken from the yard at St Nicholas’ Church. At centre the Indo-Saracenic domes of Brighton Pavilion can be seen, and in the distance, the Chain Pier, extending out into the English Channel. In the foreground are the headstones of St Nicholas’ graveyard, crookedly protruding from the mount.

The inscriptions above the drawing are continued from the folio opposite (Tate D18346; Turner Bequest CCX 21a). They are taken from the tombstone of Phoebe Hessel: a famous resident of Brighton who served in the British Army for seventeen years disguised as a man. The notes on this page are transcribed thus: ‘in difft parts of Europe | and in year 1745 fought under the Duke of | Cumberland at Fontenoy where she received a Bayonet wound in | her Arm | Her long life which [...] time of | Queen Anne | extended to G 4 | by whose munificence she received comfort | in her latter days She died at | Brighton where she long | resided A 108 years’. See CCX 21a for the rest of the inscription.