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

There are four related horizontal views here, one above the other and numbered ‘2’ to ‘5’. ‘1’ is inscribed on the full-page view opposite. They show aspects of the coast around Ostend, with number ‘5’, at the outer edge, showing the town’s distant spires and the sails of windmills. Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll have suggested this page and a few others ‘contain features which have some connection’ with the oil seascape Ostend Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844 (Neue Pinakothek, Munich),1 ‘although they are in so summary a shorthand style that it is difficult to be certain of a direct relationship.’2 See folio 6 recto (D30470) for one possible source. For numerous Ostend views on adjacent pages of this sketchbook, marking the end of Turner’s 1840 tour, see under folio 1 recto (D30460).

The Turner Bequest number for this page lacks the usual ‘a’ suffix to indicate a verso in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory.3 The otherwise blank recto is inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘17’ and stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 17’ at the bottom right, in sequence with adjacent leaves. When Tate accession numbers were assigned, the present page was initially designated as D30491, but the redundant number was subsequently cancelled.

Technical notes:

There is some brown staining around the outer edges, probably dating from the 1928 Tate Gallery flood.