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

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.