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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Isle of Wight 1827 > The House and Grounds at East Cowes ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner East Cowes Castle from the South-East, with the Mouth of the River Medina and Cowes Beyond 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘East Cowes Castle from the South-East, with the Mouth of the River Medina and Cowes Beyond’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
East Cowes Castle from the South-East, with the Mouth of the River Medina and Cowes Beyond 1827
D20804
Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 1
Gouache and ink on blue wove paper, 141 x 194 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘1’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVII(a) 1’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The view is to the north-west, with East Cowes Castle on the crest to the right and Cowes across the River Medina below, with the tower of St Mary’s Church, Cowes, designed by Turner’s Isle of Wight host John Nash1 above the masts of boats clustered around Cowes Castle on the shore. There is an anonymous picture of a similar prospect in a private collection.2
This is among dozens of blue paper studies made in and around East Cowes Castle, presumably in the course of a single visit. For more on the various aspects of the house (demolished in about 1950), and its lost grounds as depicted by Turner, see the Introduction to this subsection. Compare particularly Tate D20820, D20823, D20824, D20849, D20853 and D24845 (Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 7, 20, 21, 40, 46, 50, CCLX 9), and D40084.
1
See ‘About the Building’, Welcome to St Mary the Virgin Church, Cowes, accessed 15 December 2014, http://www.stmaryschurchcowes.org.uk/about%20the%20building.html.
2
Michael Mansbridge, John Nash: A Complete Catalogue, Oxford 1991, p.87, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘East Cowes Castle from the South-East, with the Mouth of the River Medina and Cowes Beyond 1827 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-east-cowes-castle-from-the-south-east-with-the-mouth-of-the-r1182666, accessed 21 November 2024.