Joseph Mallord William Turner Dover from the West c.1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Dover from the West
c.1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Dover from the West c.1824
D25392
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 269
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 269
Watercolour on white laid paper, 185 x 225 mm
Watermark ‘1823’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram centre left
Inscribed in red ink ‘269’ bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 269’ bottom right
Watermark ‘1823’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram centre left
Inscribed in red ink ‘269’ bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 269’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1978
Turner 1775–1851, Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, December 1978–February 1979 (59, as ‘Rocks on the coast’, reproduced).
1979
Exposicion del gran pintor ingles, William Turner: Oleos y acuarelas: Collecciones de la Tate Gallery, British Museum y otros museos ingleses, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City, August–September 1979 (BM57, as ‘Rocas de la costa’, reproduced).
1979
Oleos y acuarelas de Joseph Mallord William Turner, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela, October[–?November] 1979 (BM 57, as ‘Rocas en la costa’).
2002
Turner: Reflections of Sea and Light: Paintings and Watercolors by J.M.W. Turner from Tate, Baltimore Museum of Art, February–May 2002 (no catalogue).
2002
Turner y el mar: Acuarelas de la Tate, Fundación Juan March, Madrid, September 2002–January 2003 (10, as ‘Dover deste el oeste’, c.1820–25, reproduced in colour).
2003
O mar e a luz: Aguarelas de Turner na colecção da Tate, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, February–May 2003 (11, as ‘Dover from the West (a study for the ‘Southern Coast’ design)’, c.1820–25, reproduced in colour).
2008
¿¿¿¿¿¿ [Turner] (1775–1851), Pushkin Museum of Art, Moscow, November 2008–February 2009 (44, as ‘Dover from the West (a Study for the “Southern Coast” Design’), c.1820–25, reproduced in colour).
2009
Turner from the Tate Collection, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, April–July 2009 (44, as ‘Dover from the West (a Study for the “Southern Coast” Design’), c.1820–25, reproduced in colour).
References
1820
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.834, CCLXIII 269, as ‘Rocks on coast, with ruined castle’, c.1820–30.
1978
John Sillevis, Nini Jonker and Hripsimé Visser, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague 1978, p.98 no.59, as ‘Rocks on the coast’, reproduced.
1979
John Gage, Exposicion del gran pintor ingles, William Turner: Oleos y acuarelas: Collecciones de la Tate Gallery, British Museum y otros museos ingleses, exhibition catalogue, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City 1979, reproduced p.43, p.61 no.BM57, as ‘Rocas de la costa’.
1979
John Gage and Ana T. de Gradowska, Oleos y acuarelas de Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibition catalogue, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela 1979, p.[24] no.BM57, as ‘Rocas en la costa’.
1997
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, p.95 Appendix I ‘Dover’.
1820
Ian Warrell in Warrell, José Jiménez, Nicola Moorby and others, Turner y el mar: Acuarelas de la Tate, exhibition catalogue, Fundación Juan March, Madrid 2002, reproduced in colour p.52, p.133 no.10, as ‘Dover deste el oeste’, c.1820–25.
1820
Ian Warrell in Warrell, Nicola Moorby, Sarah Taft and others, O mar e a luz: Aguarelas de Turner na colecção da Tate, exhibition catalogue, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon 2003, reproduced in colour p.53, p.151 no.11, as ‘Dover from the West (a study for the ‘Southern Coast’ design)’, c.1820–25.
1820
Anna Poznanskaya, Ian Warrell, Matthew Imms and others, ¿¿¿¿¿¿ [Turner], exhibition catalogue, Pushkin Museum of Art, Moscow 2008, p.88 no. 44, as ‘Dover from the West (a Study for the “Southern Coast” Design’), c.1820–25, reproduced in colour.
1820
Thomas Ardill in Fan Di’an, Ian Warrell, Matthew Imms and others, Turner from the Tate Collection, exhibition catalogue, National Art Museum of China, Beijing 2009, p.81 no.44, as ‘Dover from the West (a Study for the “Southern Coast” Design’), c.1820–25, reproduced in colour, p.170.
This delicate colour study of a silhouetted castle and cliffs was identified by Ian Warrell as showing Dover from the west, in unpublished notes acknowledged by Eric Shanes.1 Warrell subsequently associated the work with the Southern Coast scheme2 (see the Introduction to this section), specifically Dover from Shakespeare’s Cliff, a currently untraced watercolour of about 1824,3 engraved in 1826 (Tate impressions: T04424, T05246–T05251).
Alice Rylance-Watson’s entry for Ports of England watercolour Dover of about 1825 (Tate D18154; Turner Bequest CCVIII U)4 includes a comprehensive listing of Turner’s many depictions of the Kent port and its surroundings. The composition here is closely comparable to the depiction of the castle, chalk cliffs and low-lying harbour complex in the background of the finished Southern Coast design, where the major difference is in the introduction of more cliffs and the defensive earthworks of the Western Heights in the foreground,5 animated by a prominent redcoat sentry and a heavy horse-drawn cart crossing a precarious bridge. Turner would also alter the time of day, so that the hillside below the castle, in early morning shade here, is illuminated by afternoon sun from the left. See the entry for Tate D36118 (Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 271) regarding a similar change.
Thomas Ardill has described the present work as probably ‘an experiment representing an early stage in the artist’s thinking about the subject’, and its abandonment ‘may indicate that it had by then served its purpose and convinced him that the composition needed to be significantly altered, or that the colour range was wrong.’6 Nevertheless, he characterises it as possessing ‘breadth, simplicity and a light palette that makes it effective in its own right and comparable in appearance to some of the very economical representations Turner made in Venice in 1819.’7
Technical notes:
There is a red colour test at the bottom centre.
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘Dover from the West c.1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www