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

Much of Turner’s time in Berwick-upon-Tweed (from seven in the evening of 10 August 1831 to ten o’clock the next morning) is accounted for in the diary of Robert Cadell, who accompanied the artist and described Turner as making a sketch of the ‘old Castle, the Bridge and sea’ from ‘a field on the left of the Dunse Road’ (Tate D26009–D26010; Turner Bequest CCLXVII 48a–49).1 However, between ten o’clock on the morning of 11 August when Cadell left Berwick, and two o’clock when Turner followed on the mail coach, the artist’s movements are unaccounted for. A number of studies of the town in the current sketchbook were probably made at this time.

The sketches on the present page and folio 14 (D25666) may have been some of the first of these studies as they show similar views of Berwick-upon-Tweed with the castle ruins as the drawing that Cadell described. The present page, used with the book inverted and inscribed ‘Ber[wick]’, shows the ruins of the castle from the opposite direction to the former sketch, therefore from the east of the castle.

The sketch on folio 14 was made from the same position, but looks towards the Bell Tower on the town’s medieval wall. There are further studies of Berwick on folios 9 verso, 28 verso, 29, and 44 verso–47 (D25658, D25692, D25693, D25723–D25728).