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

Like folio 5 recto (D35408; Turner Bequest CCCLVIII 6), this sketch captures the appearance of storm clouds breaking over sea. Here a rocky cliff face and sea are picked out in delicate pinks and yellow washes, leaving it to the dense purple-brown cloud formations to assume the more substantial mass. Intense downpours are indicated by parallel downward strokes while highly saturated brush-strokes worked wet-on-wet describe the dark central formations of the rain cloud, ignoring or obscuring distinctions between land, sea and sky.

Verso:

Blank, except for patches of watercolour transferred from folio 13 recto opposite (D35416;
Turner Bequest CCCLVIII 14).