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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Review at Portsmouth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Boats Moored in Plymouth Sound, with the Great Mew Stone in the Distance 1814

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boats Moored in Plymouth Sound, with the Great Mew Stone in the Distance’ 1814
Folio 17 Recto:
Boats Moored in Plymouth Sound, with the Great Mew Stone in the Distance 1814
D10003
Turner Bequest CXXXVI 17
Pencil on white wove paper, 82 x 119 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘17’ bottom left, descending vertically (smudged)
Stamped in black ‘CXXXVI – 17’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg titled this sketch as ‘Vessels of Portsmouth’.1 However, it has now been identified as Plymouth Sound owing to the shape of the land formations in the background. With the page turned horizontally, the small triangular shaped island on the right–hand side appears to be the Great Mew Stone and the larger land formation stretching across the centre is the Worswell coastline. From the perspective, it can be speculated that Turner was situated on the mainland, facing south–east somewhere between Heybrook Bay and Wembury Beach.
Other depictions of the Great Mew Stone include a watercolour sketch (Tate D17170; Turner Bequest CXCVI F), and studies in the Plymouth, Hamoaze sketchbook of 1813 (Tate D09275–D09277, D09279, D09448, D09450, D09452, D09454, D09458, D09460, D09462; Turner Bequest CXXXI 53, 54, 55, 57, 172a, 173a, 174a, 175a, 177a, 178a, 179a). Additionally, in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, there is a watercolour of about 1814, A Ship against the Mewstone, at the Entrance of Plymouth Sound2 engraved in 1816 as The Mew Stone, at the Entrance of Plymouth Sound, Devonshire for the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England (Tate impressions: T04383–T04385, T05392, T05393, T05970). A watercolour traditionally known as Storm off Margate (private collection) has been identified as another view.3
See the pages up to folio 23 recto (D10003–D10009) for other drawings of Plymouth Sound.
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.389.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.351 no.454, reproduced.
3
At the time of its being offered at auction at Christie’s, London, 4 June 2008 (26),
Verso:
Blank

Vanessa Otim
March 2025

How to cite

Vanessa Otim, ‘Boats Moored in Plymouth Sound, with the Great Mew Stone in the Distance 1814’, catalogue entry, March 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2026, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/boats-moored-in-plymouth-sound-with-the-great-mew-stone-in-the-distance-r1213907, accessed 31 July 2026.