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 A Crowd, Perhaps Watching Cowes Regatta 1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Crowd, Perhaps Watching Cowes Regatta’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 69 Recto:
A Crowd, Perhaps Watching Cowes Regatta 1827
D20701
Turner Bequest CCXXVI 66
Pencil on white wove paper, 192 x 112 mm
Partial watermark ‘R Bar | 18’
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVI – 66’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned vertically. Like the equally swift study on folio 68 verso opposite (D20700; Turner Bequest CCXXVI 65a), a disparate group of figures, including women, and soldiers distinguished by X-shaped webbing, is shown on a slope with trees and buildings lightly indicated. They are likely to be spectators on the shore at Cowes Regatta; compare the setting and variety of figures in Turner’s 1827 oil Sketch for ‘East Cowes Castle, the Regatta Starting for Their Moorings’ No.3 (Tate N01997)1 and the subsequent painting East Cowes Castle, the Seat of J. Nash, Esq.; the Regatta Starting for their Moorings, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1828 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).2 For other spectators, see under folio 13 recto (D20615; Turner Bequest CCXXVI 12).
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
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.161 no.265, pl.270 (colour).
2
Ibid., pp.150–1 no.243, pl.247 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Crowd, Perhaps Watching Cowes Regatta 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-a-crowd-perhaps-watching-cowes-regatta-r1183343, accessed 24 April 2024.