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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Margate, London and Surrey c.1829-45 > Margate Beach Scenes > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Margate: Figures at Jarvis's Landing Place with the Lighthouse Beyond and a Distant Steamer c.1829-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Margate: Figures at Jarvis's Landing Place with the Lighthouse Beyond and a Distant Steamer’ c.1829-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Margate: Figures at Jarvis’s Landing Place with the Lighthouse Beyond and a Distant Steamer c.1829–40
D24834
Turner Bequest CCLIX 269
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 139 x 190 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘269’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXI 269’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The setting is Margate’s Great Beach, with a crowd figures on the shore and on the jetty of Jarvis’s Landing Place, and the lighthouse silhouetted against afternoon light to the west. Some at least seem to be waiting for a distant steamer, lightly outlined on the horizon, to arrive down the Thames Estuary; see also some of the groupings categorised elsewhere in this catalogue as ‘Figures on a Beach c.1826–45’, and compare the immediacy of some of the rapidly painted but deftly characterised figures in the blue paper gouache studies made at Petworth House in 1827 (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXLIV). For more details of the Margate setting, see the Introduction to this subsection.
Technical notes:
There is a prominent finger print on the darkest figure towards the left, where some of the dense paint has been lifted straight out again while wet.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLIX – 269’ top right, descending vertically.

Matthew Imms
August 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Margate: Figures at Jarvis’s Landing Place with the Lighthouse Beyond and a Distant Steamer 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-figures-at-jarviss-landing-place-with-the-lighthouse-r1183884, accessed 26 April 2024.