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

The page was used horizontally, both ways up. The drawing at the outer edge appears to show the keep of Dover Castle from the west, with the towers around the Constable’s Gate below, probably drawn while passing up Castle Hill Road from the harbour (see folio 13 verso; D30482; CCCIII 12a) in the direction of Deal. Folio 13 recto opposite (D30481; CCCIII 12) is a similar view. This aspect is now largely screened by trees; among earlier sketches of the castle, compare for example Tate D19349 (Turner Bequest CCXIV 256a) among those in the 1825 Holland book.

Dover is seen from the sea on folio 14 recto (D30483; CCCIII 13); these sketches and a few others fall within a sequence of coastal views at Ostend, marking the end of Turner’s long Continental itinerary; see under folio 1 recto (D30460).1

The other way up is another view, labelled ‘Deal’, and shows the Tudor coastal fort there, about nine miles north-east of Dover; compare Tate D19391 (Turner Bequest CCXIV 278) in the 1825 Holland sketchbook, as mentioned above, and William Daniell’s 1823 aquatint (Tate impression: T02949).