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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Cornwall and Devon Sketchbook [pseudo ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Rocky Coast with Buildings in Cornwall or North Devon 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Rocky Coast with Buildings in Cornwall or North Devon’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 83 Recto:
A Rocky Coast with Buildings in Cornwall or North Devon 1811
D41365
Turner Bequest CXXV a 83
Pencil on white wove paper, 142 x 215 mm
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘83’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 83’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This rugged coastline with houses on the right and distant boats at sea on the left is currently unidentified, but typical of the rugged coastline of Cornwall and North Devon recorded elsewhere in this sketchbook.
As discussed in the introduction, the pages of this ‘sketchbook’ appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject in a manuscript listing without further comment as ‘Mounts Bay’,1 for which see under folio 6 recto (D41281). C.F. Bell described it in his own notes simply as ‘Fishing-village in bay’.2 Figures differing from Bell’s sequence are inscribed on the verso of most sheets; they usually correspond with the pagination given in Finberg’s MS catalogue, but here and in a few other cases the numbers do not match, so a tentative connection has been made on the basis of Finberg’s descriptive title.
1
A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.356, as CXXV(a) 5.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356C, as CXXVa 83.
Technical notes:
There is a stray ?ink mark towards the bottom centre. The sheet is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘100’ bottom right. There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet, and slight abrasion down the left-hand edge.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Rocky Coast with Buildings in Cornwall or North Devon 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-rocky-coast-with-buildings-in-cornwall-or-north-devon-r1137513, accessed 27 September 2024.