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

These cursory sketches, rendered with the book turned upside down, show Arundel Park with the castle atop the motte in the distance. Arundel Castle overlooks the River Arun in the county of West Sussex, and was built at the end of the eleventh century by Roger de Montgomery, Earl of Arundel.1 It has been the seat of the Dukes of Norfolk for over eight hundred and fifty years.

A post mill can be seen in the uppermost view (see Tate D18424; Turner Bequest CCX 66) and in the lower sketch, the arc of a rainbow at right. Both the mill and rainbow appear in Turner’s watercolour design for W.B. Cooke’s Rivers of England (Tate D18139; Turner Bequest CCVIII F).2 See also the accompanying design Arundel Castle on the River Arun for the same project (Tate D18140; Turner Bequest CCVIII G). Turner scholar Andrew Wilton writes that the present sketches and those on Tate D18419; Turner Bequest CCX 63a were also preparatory material for Arundel Castle and Town, Sussex produced for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales print series (Tate impression T06109).3
For other sketches of Arundel Castle in this book see Tate D18419–D18461; Turner Bequest CCX 63–84a. See also Tate D22819–D22820, D22847–D22848, D22881–D22884, D22887, D22900–D22901, D22936, D23002–D23010; Turner Bequest CCXLV 21a–22, 38a–39, 60a–62, 63a, 70a–71, CCXLVI 22, 86a–91.