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

These drawings were made on three registers with the page turned vertically, working down from the outer edge. Here and on folio 27 recto and verso (D20639, D20640; Turner Bequest CCXXVI 26, 26a) are busy scenes of sailing and rowing boats manoeuvring in close proximity, as well as crowds of figures. D20640 includes a view from Cowes across the River Medina towards East Cowes Castle, and suggests that the whole sequence was made from the shoreline at Cowes during the Regatta or related events from late July 1827 onwards. These are among many such coastal and nautical studies in this sketchbook, as discussed in the Introduction.