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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Likely English, Scottish or Welsh ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of a Harbour, with Houses, a Church and Boats c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of a Harbour, with Houses, a Church and Boats’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Studies of a Harbour, with Houses, a Church and Boats c.1820–40
D34951
Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 450
Pencil on off-white laid card, 64 x 94 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLIV 450’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These rapid but quite detailed sketches of buildings on a waterfront with beached boats were presumably made directly during an unidentified tour, and probably show a British scene. The lower study includes a small Gothic church with a pinnacled square tower, seen from the south-east. There are more elaborate pinnacles on a smaller building over the rooftops to its south, and there appears to be a windmill in the distance on the right. The upper drawing seems to be a continuation to the left of the main view.
Finberg placed the sheet somewhat arbitrarily in a large ‘Miscellaneous: black and white’ grouping dated between about 1830 and 1841;1 it has been placed in the present section and given the widest date range assigned to other works here pending further investigation, although it could well be rather earlier.
1
See Finberg 1909, II, p.1152.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in red ink ‘cccxliv.435’ (sic), with another three-digit suffix in pencil crossed through above, and ‘450’ in pencil above that.

Matthew Imms
August 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Studies of a Harbour, with Houses, a Church and Boats c.1820–40 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, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-studies-of-a-harbour-with-houses-a-church-and-boats-r1184471, accessed 25 April 2024.