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 Cowes Castle from the South 1827

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Cowes Castle from the South’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Cowes Castle from the South 1827
D20865
Turner Bequest CCXXVIII 5
Pencil on blue wove paper, 141 x 191 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Stamped in black ‘CCCCVIII 5’ 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 of Cowes Castle. Here the castle is seen on the shore at the mouth of the River Medina from the south. On the right is the barbican which remains one of the few recognisable features after much Victorian redevelopment (see under Tate D18025; Turner Bequest CCVII 19a). Compare Turner’s watercolour of about 1796 (Tate D00667; Turner Bequest XXVII F).
As noted there, the present work and eight other sheets were recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory as mounted, and ‘formed part of a bundle’ labelled by John Ruskin ‘O. 166. Shipping, &c. rubbish’,1 although the nine are now all numbered ‘232 | O’ on their versos in common with the rest of the Turner Bequest CCXXVIII grouping, which Finberg noted as unmounted and ‘part of parcel endorsed, “O. 232. Chalk scrawls on grey. Rubbish.”’2
1
Finberg 1909, II, p.702.
2
Ibid.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘232 | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCXXVIII . 5’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Cowes Castle from the South 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-cowes-castle-from-the-south-r1183397, accessed 26 April 2024.