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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Isle of Wight 1827 > The House and Grounds at East Cowes ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner East Cowes Castle from the South, with Figures in the Foreground 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘East Cowes Castle from the South, with Figures in the Foreground’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
East Cowes Castle from the South, with Figures in the Foreground 1827
D20812
Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 9
Chalk and ink on blue wove paper, 137 x 194 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘9’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVII(a) 9’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The view is northwards towards East Cowes Castle, with the distant main tower over the ‘octagon room’ flanked by conservatories but dominated by the smaller tower of the garden room tower at the southern corner of the lawn towards the right. Groups of figures take their ease on the slopes below the garden. Compare in particular Tate D24847 (Turner Bequest CCLX 11), and see also D20828 (CCXXVII a 25).
This is among dozens of blue paper studies made in and around East Cowes Castle, presumably in the course of a single visit. For more on the various aspects of the house (demolished in about 1950), and its lost grounds as depicted by Turner, see the Introduction to this subsection.
Verso:
Blank; heavily applied ink on the recto has bled through a little, and there is very slight ink offsetting, presumably from another drawing in this East Cowes sequence.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘East Cowes Castle from the South, with Figures in the Foreground 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-east-cowes-castle-from-the-south-with-figures-in-the-r1182675, accessed 24 April 2024.