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-West, with a Couple among Trees by the Full Moon 1827

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘East Cowes Castle from the South-West, with a Couple among Trees by the Full Moon’ 1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
East Cowes Castle from the South-West, with a Couple among Trees by the Full Moon 1827
D20835
Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 32
Chalk and ink on blue wove paper, 142 x 195 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘32’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXVII(a) 32’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
From the woods south-west of East Cowes Castle, the steps below the arcaded façade of the smaller of its two conservatories (see particularly under Tate D20844; Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 41) are seen in the distance above the couple reclining in the foreground as the full moon rises. They are of the sort Finberg dubbed ‘lovers’ here and in similar studies;1 see under D20809 (CCXXVII a 6) for other examples.
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, where other sheets showing the moon are noted.
1
See Finberg 1909, II, p.701.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
November 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘East Cowes Castle from the South-West, with a Couple among Trees by the Full Moon 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-west-with-a-couple-among-r1182698, accessed 21 November 2024.