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, Meuse and Cologne Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Coastal Profiles around Dover from the English Channel, with Shakespeare Cliff, the Western Heights and the Castle, and Cliffs towards the South Foreland 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coastal Profiles around Dover from the English Channel, with Shakespeare Cliff, the Western Heights and the Castle, and Cliffs towards the South Foreland’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
Coastal Profiles around Dover from the English Channel, with Shakespeare Cliff, the Western Heights and the Castle, and Cliffs towards the South Foreland 1825
D19405
Turner Bequest CCXV 3
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘3’ top right, and ‘277’ bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘3’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCXV – 3’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are three bands of related sketches, each showing aspects Dover from the sea.1 At the top, the distinctively slanted profile of Shakespeare Cliff is seen to the west of the harbour, with the defences of the Western Heights to its north. Compare folio 4 verso (D19408) and see under Tate D18842 (Turner Bequest CCXV 1a) in the contemporary Holland sketchbook for other views of it there and elsewhere.
The Drop Redoubt, seen at the far right of the top view, also appears on the skyline on the left of the middle sketch, which extends to include Dover Castle and the cliffs immediately south of it; in the third band these are continued to the right, undulating north-eastwards to the South Foreland. The lowest of three related subjects on folio 2 verso opposite (D19404) shows an overall prospect of the castle and cliffs. For other Dover views in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 1 recto (D19401).

Matthew Imms
September 2020

1
See Finberg 1909, II, p.662.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Coastal Profiles around Dover from the English Channel, with Shakespeare Cliff, the Western Heights and the Castle, and Cliffs towards the South Foreland 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-coastal-profiles-around-dover-from-the-english-channel-with-r1202760, accessed 19 May 2024.