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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Piers at Ostend, with the Town Beyond 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 15 Recto:
The Piers at Ostend, with the Town Beyond 1840
D30485
Turner Bequest CCCIII 14
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 170 x 104 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘14’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 14’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The two slight sketches were made one above the other, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. They appear to show aspects of the old parallel wooden piers defining the channel to Ostend’s harbour, with slight indications of the town’s spires and a windmill to the south-west.
For numerous Ostend views on adjacent pages of this sketchbook, marking the end of Turner’s 1840 tour, see under folio 1 recto (D30460).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Piers at Ostend, with the Town Beyond 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-piers-at-ostend-with-the-town-beyond-r1196245, accessed 18 April 2024.