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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Margate: The Great Beach with Droit House, the Pier and Lighthouse, Jarvis's Landing Place and Fort Point c.1829-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Margate: The Great Beach with Droit House, the Pier and Lighthouse, Jarvis’s Landing Place and Fort Point c.1829–40
D20319
Turner Bequest CCXXIV 29
Gouache and chalk on blue wove paper, 140 x 188 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXIV – 29’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This harbour view ranges west to the lighthouse and the cupola of Droit House on Margate’s stone pier, over Jarvis’s Landing Place with shipping at the end of the jetty, across the Great Beach to the cliffs of Fort Point to the north; the distinctive scene has been recognised by David Blayney Brown and James Hamilton.1 The cluster of dark marks below the pier, silhouetted in the afternoon light, suggests a crowd of passengers arriving or departing while isolated figures stand by in the foreground. The viewpoint, if not Mrs Booth’s house itself, is along Bank Side. For more on all these aspects of the scene, see the Introduction to this subsection.
The verso is Tate D20320 (Turner Bequest CCXXIV 29v), another view of the jetty.
1
See Brown 1987, p.10, and Hamilton 1998, p.84.
Technical notes:
A stroke of white gouache highlights the surface of the sea to the right of the pier.

Matthew Imms
August 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Margate: The Great Beach with Droit House, the Pier and Lighthouse, Jarvis’s Landing Place and Fort Point c.1829–40 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-margate-the-great-beach-with-droit-house-the-pier-and-r1183879, accessed 19 March 2024.