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 Views around Dover from the Harbour, with Shakespeare Cliff, the Western Heights, and Harbourfront Buildings; Part of Dover Castle 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views around Dover from the Harbour, with Shakespeare Cliff, the Western Heights, and Harbourfront Buildings; Part of Dover Castle’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 6 Verso:
Views around Dover from the Harbour, with Shakespeare Cliff, the Western Heights, and Harbourfront Buildings; Part of Dover Castle 1825
D19412
Turner Bequest CCXV 6a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by Turner ‘Fort’ towards top centre, above skyline, and ‘[?S...]’ at centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page comprises four bands of related sketches around Dover, as Finberg recognised.1 At the top, the distinctive profile of Shakespeare Cliff is seen at the centre beyond the old piers, with the slopes towards the Western Heights on the right. Compare one of the views on folio 3 recto (D19405). Secondly, the fortifications on the skyline of the heights are outlined; third is a study of buildings along the north side of the harbour, with the spire of St Mary’s Church on the left. The setting has seen much change and development since Turner’s time. There is a page of similar studies around the harbour in the contemporary Holland sketchbook (Tate D19360; Turner Bequest CCXIV 262).
Below, partly overlapping with the third general view, is a detail of Dover Castle, with the profiles of the Constable’s Gate and the central keep above to its east, as shown in an overall view of the castle to the north-east above the harbour on folio 7 recto opposite (D19413). 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, ‘Views around Dover from the Harbour, with Shakespeare Cliff, the Western Heights, and Harbourfront Buildings; Part of Dover Castle 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-views-around-dover-from-the-harbour-with-shakespeare-cliff-r1202767, accessed 20 May 2024.