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 > Cowes, the River Medina and Shipping > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Medina Seen through Trees near East Cowes Castle, with Shipping and Cowes Beyond 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Medina Seen through Trees near East Cowes Castle, with Shipping and Cowes Beyond’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The River Medina Seen through Trees near East Cowes Castle, with Shipping and Cowes Beyond 1827
D20857
Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 54
Chalk and ink on blue wove paper, 138 x 192 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘54’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVII(a) 54’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is among dozens of blue paper studies presumably made in connection with the Cowes Regatta events in the late summer of 1827; see the Introduction to this subsection for other views across to Cowes, looking west over the River Medina from the East Cowes side. In this instance the towers of East Cowes Castle appear to be indicated on the far left.
Finberg categorised this sheet and several others in a section mainly comprising ‘East Cowes Castle’ views1 distinguished by their use of ink outlines, having made a division between the Isle of Wight blue paper drawings using that medium and those in pencil and chalk, which he grouped as ‘Yachts, &c., at Cowes’;2 in the present subsection the latter have been augmented by those in ink of relevant subjects other than East Cowes Castle, which are dealt with separately.
1
Finberg 1909, II, pp.700–1, CCXXVII a 1–57.
2
Ibid., p.702, CCXXVIII 1–44.
Verso:
Blank; there are slight signs of dense ink bleeding through from the recto, and scattered ink offsetting, presumably from another of the ink drawings in this Isle of Wight sequence.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The River Medina Seen through Trees near East Cowes Castle, with Shipping and Cowes Beyond 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-the-river-medina-seen-through-trees-near-east-cowes-castle-r1183388, accessed 18 April 2024.