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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A View along the English Channel towards Folkestone, from the Cliffs, ?with the Royal Oak Inn near Capel-le Ferne 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A View along the English Channel towards Folkestone, from the Cliffs, ?with the Royal Oak Inn near Capel-le Ferne’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Verso:
A View along the English Channel towards Folkestone, from the Cliffs, ?with the Royal Oak Inn near Capel-le Ferne 1825
D18848
Turner Bequest CCXIV 4a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the view is from the Channel cliffs west of Dover (see under folio 2 recto; D18843), looking west-south-west across East Wear Bay towards Folkestone (see under folio 8 recto; D18855), with the tower of St Mary and St Eanswythe’s Church. The sketch is one of a short sequence progressing the seven miles or so westwards between the towns; erosion and development make the specific viewpoints difficult to establish.
At the top left is a small sketch looking back to the east, with what seems to be the same building shown from the other direction on the recto (D18847) and preceding pages, likely a coastguard look-out. The small building at the top right, possibly in a direct continuation of the main view, may be the long-established but much-altered Royal Oak inn, towards Capel-le-Ferne on the old cliff-top road.1

Matthew Imms
September 2020

1
See Paul Skelton, ‘Royal Oak’, Dover Kent Archives, accessed 27 February 2020, http://www.dover-kent.com/Royal-Oak-Capel.html.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A View along the English Channel towards Folkestone, from the Cliffs, ?with the Royal Oak Inn near Capel-le Ferne 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-view-along-the-english-channel-towards-folkestone-from-the-r1202200, accessed 19 May 2024.