Joseph Mallord William Turner A Castle on the Coast, Possibly Pendennis near Falmouth or Laugharne c.1825-30
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
A Castle on the Coast, Possibly Pendennis near Falmouth or Laugharne
c.1825-30
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Castle on the Coast, Possibly Pendennis near Falmouth or Laugharne c.1825–30
D25318
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 196
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 196
Watercolour on white wove paper, 338 x 439 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘196’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 196’ bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘196’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 196’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (53, reproduced, as ‘A fort by a stormy sea’. ?c.1817).
2002
Turner: Reflections of Sea and Light: Paintings and Watercolors by J.M.W. Turner from Tate, Baltimore Museum of Art, February–May 2002 (no catalogue).
2002
Turner y el mar: Acuarelas de la Tate, Fundación Juan March Madrid, September 2002–January 2003 (44, reproduced in colour, as ‘Castillo en la costa, posiblemente Falmouth’, c.1825–30).
2003
O mar e a luz: Aguarelas de Turner na colecção da Tate, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, February–May 2003 (47, reproduced in colour, as ‘Castle on the Coast; possibly Falmouth’, c.1825–30).
2007
Hockney on Turner Watercolours, Tate Britain, London, June 2007–February 2008 (not in catalogue, as ‘Castle on the Coast; Possibly Falmouth’).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.829, CCLXIII 196, as ‘Castle on the coast’. c.1820–30.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, p.50 no.53, reproduced (captioned in error as 52), as ‘A fort by a stormy sea’. ?c.1817.
1997
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.27, 96, 105: (Appendix I under ‘England and Wales Series’, as ‘Sketch of a variant view of Laugharne Castle, South Wales, looking south-westwards’. ?c.1831), (p.105 Appendix II, as ‘Sketch: Variant Laugharne Castle, South Wales?’).
2002
Ian Warrell, José Jiménez, Nicola Moorby and others, Turner y el mar: Acuarelas de la Tate, exhibition catalogue, Fundación Juan March, Madrid 2002, pp.86–7 (no.44, reproduced in colour, as ‘Castillo en la costa, posiblemente Falmouth’. c.1825–30).
2003
Ian Warrell, Nicola Moorby, Sarah Taft and others, O mar e a luz: Aguarelas de Turner na colecção da Tate, exhibition catalogue, Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon 2003, p.95 no.47 (reproduced in colour, as ‘Castle on the Coast; possibly Falmouth’. c.1825–30).
Andrew Wilton suggested this as perhaps a Devon or Cornwall view, connected with the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England series1 (see the Introduction to the 1811 tour of the West Country in the present catalogue).
Eric Shanes has called it ‘almost certainly ... a variant view’ from the watercolour Laugharne Castle of about 1831 (Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio),2 engraved in 1833 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales as Langharne [sic], or Talacharne Castle, Caermarthenshire (Tate impressions: T06103, T06104).3 That composition is based on a pencil sketch of the castle above the Taf Estuary in the 1795 South Wales sketchbook (Tate D00572; Turner Bequest XXVI 19); the only other sketch there (Tate D00574; Turner Bequest XXVI 21) is almost entirely taken up with the castle, and appears unrelated to the present study. A more likely Laugharne colour study, relatable to the finished watercolour, is Tate D25297 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 175).
The present study, with waves crashing against what appears to be a beach and rocks or cliffs, with a more or less level horizon suggesting the open sea to the left beyond the perfunctory silhouette of a castle-like building on a headland, evokes a coastal setting. When the work was exhibited in 2002–3 it was suggested that Falmouth, Cornwall might be the subject;4 if so, the view would be from the St Mawes side of Carrick Roads, looking west.
There are drawings in and around Falmouth scattered through the 1811 Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (Tate D08375, D08538, D08566, D08574, D08576, D08579, D08641, D08760, D08761; CXXIII 7a, 89a, 104, 108a, 109a, 111, 144a, 217a, 218), and in the contemporary Ivy Bridge to Penzance sketchbook (Tate D08901, D08905, D08906, D08908; Turner Bequest CXXV 24a, 27, 27a, 29). An overall view of the town, looking south-east towards Pendennis Castle on the peninsula rising beyond is shown in the watercolour Falmouth Harbour of about 1812–14 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),5 engraved in 1816 for the Southern Coast. The castle alone is seen from the west in the watercolour Pendennis Castle, Cornwall, Scene after a Wreck of about 1816 (private collection),6 engraved in 1817 for the same series.
The watercolour of Falmouth of about 1825 (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts),7 engraved in 1828 for The Ports of England (but not published until 1856 in The Harbours of England), is dominated by St Mawes Castle in the foreground, but to the left in the background Pendennis Castle is shown to the west on its headland towards the sea. The castle also appears in the distance from the east in the watercolour St Mawes, Cornwall of about 1823 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven),8 engraved in 1824 for the Southern Coast, and in a second, untraced watercolour with the same title, of about 1828,9 engraved in 1830 for England and Wales; Turner had initially painted a version in oils, St Mawes in the Pilchard Season, which he exhibited at his gallery in 1812 (Tate N00484).10 Related drawings, all featuring Pendennis Castle in the background, are in the Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (Tate D08620, D08643; Turner Bequest CXXIII 133, 145a) and the Ivy Bridge to Penzance sketchbook (Tate D08909; Turner Bequest CXXV 30).
For all this, it is possible that the present colour study’s slight resemblance to these views of Pendennis Castle from the west may be fortuitous. Nevertheless, the date suggested here, c.1825–31, reflects both Warrell’s dating of it as a possible England and Wales Falmouth study and Shanes’s in relation to Laugharne.
See also the Introductions to the present subsection of tentatively identified but unrealised subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘AB 94 P | O’, ‘CCLXIII | 196’ and ‘D.25318’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram above ‘CCLXIII – 196’ bottom right. The verso is affected by prominent brown staining, possibly varnish, particularly on the right; this has bled through a little to the recto, although it is not very prominent among the dark tones at the corresponding left-hand side of the composition.
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘AB 94 P | O’, ‘CCLXIII | 196’ and ‘D.25318’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram above ‘CCLXIII – 196’ bottom right. The verso is affected by prominent brown staining, possibly varnish, particularly on the right; this has bled through a little to the recto, although it is not very prominent among the dark tones at the corresponding left-hand side of the composition.
The ‘AB’ number corresponds with the endorsement on one of the parcels of works sorted by John Ruskin during his survey of the Turner Bequest, in this case classified by him as ‘Colour effects. Finer’.1
Matthew Imms
March 2013
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘A Castle on the Coast, Possibly Pendennis near Falmouth or Laugharne c.1825–30 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www