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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Yachts on the River Medina off Cowes Castle, with East Cowes Castle Beyond; Figures in a Sailing Boat 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Recto:
Yachts on the River Medina off Cowes Castle, with East Cowes Castle Beyond; Figures in a Sailing Boat 1827
D20711
Turner Bequest CCXXVI 71
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 192 mm
Partial watermark ‘R Bar | 18’
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVI – 71’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main drawing is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, and continues across folio 73 verso opposite (D20710; Turner Bequest CCXXVI 70a). The viewpoint is the mouth of the River Medina off Cowes Castle, seen on the opposite page, where the panoramic prospect runs south-west along the shore at Cowes before extending here south-eastwards to East Cowes, with the tower of East Cowes Castle (see under folio 1 verso; D20597) lightly indicated on the skyline beyond the bunting of the moored sailing boats. Compare the setting of the 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).1
At the top right is a separate detail showing figures, apparently including a woman in a large bonnet, in the stern of a sailing boat below the boom of its mainsail. 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, pp.150–1 no.243, pl.247 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Yachts on the River Medina off Cowes Castle, with East Cowes Castle Beyond; Figures in a Sailing Boat 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-yachts-on-the-river-medina-off-cowes-castle-with-east-cowes-r1183353, accessed 23 September 2024.