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, Perhaps at Sunset 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘East Cowes Castle from the South-East, with the Mouth of the River Medina and Cowes Beyond, Perhaps at Sunset’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
East Cowes Castle from the South-East, with the Mouth of the River Medina and Cowes Beyond, Perhaps at Sunset 1827
D20823
Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 20
Chalk, ink and pencil on blue wove paper, 139 x 190 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVII(a) 20’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg ignored the immediate topography, somewhat poetically dubbing the subject ‘The sun setting over the Solent’,1 apparently associating the view with another made further from East Cowes Castle, which he called ‘Moonrise’2 (Tate D20824; Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 21). In fact the Solent is only just indicated here by a brief horizon line; streaks of white above the skyline of Cowes on the left might indicate the last glow of dusk, but it hardly constitutes a classic Turnerian sunset effect. Similar views are noted under D20804 (CCXXVII a 1).
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.
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.701.
2
Ibid.
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, Perhaps at Sunset 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-r1182686, accessed 21 November 2024.