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 > Windsor and Cowes, Isle of Wight ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Norris Castle and Cowes from the Solent, with Yachts 1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Norris Castle and Cowes from the Solent, with Yachts’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 50 Recto:
Norris Castle and Cowes from the Solent, with Yachts 1827
D20673
Turner Bequest CCXXVI 48
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 192 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVI – 48’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg’s basic Cowes identification is correct.1 The upper of the three views shows Norris Castle (see under folio 40 recto; D20658; Turner Bequest CCXXVI 38) to the south-east from the Solent, with East Cowes Castle on the skyline in the distance (see under folio 1 verso; D20597), south-west of the first building. The objects in the sea below the castle are perhaps marker buoys or moored boats marking a Regatta racing course.
The middle drawing is effectively a continuation westwards of the first, with the mouth of the River Medina, Cowes and the coast beyond to the south-west, and the lightly indicated profile beyond the masts in the lower sketch may again be Cowes. For more on studies in this sketchbook relating to the regatta events at Cowes from late July 1827 onwards, see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.696; see also Butlin, Wilton and Gage 1974, p.102.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Norris Castle and Cowes from the Solent, with Yachts 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-norris-castle-and-cowes-from-the-solent-with-yachts-r1183314, accessed 26 April 2024.