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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Folkestone and the Medway c.1821-2 > Medway Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner On the River Medway at Chatham, with Upnor Castle, and Rochester in the Distance c.1821

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘On the River Medway at Chatham, with Upnor Castle, and Rochester in the Distance’ c.1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 47 Verso:
On the River Medway at Chatham, with Upnor Castle, and Rochester in the Distance c.1821
D17446
Turner Bequest CXCIX 47a
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 190 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Identified by Finberg as scenes on the River Medway, two drawings mark the top portion of this sheet.1 The topmost of these describes a hilltop fort in the distance at centre, possibly Fort Pitt at Chatham. The river in the foreground is populated only by a single light craft towards the left, while the topographic horizon is peppered with architectural constructions.
Lower down the page, a second drawing appears to describe a distant view of Rochester Castle from the northeast, visible at left alongside the distinctive spire of the adjacent Cathedral. At far right, a broad, turreted building is likely to represent Upnor Castle. A number of boats occupy the water at left. The most significantly foregrounded of these overlaps with the sketch above.
There are a great number of studies made at Rochester, Chatham, and Upnor Castle in the present sketchbook. For comprehensive lists of these, see respectively the entries for folios 18 recto, 22 recto, and 87 verso (D17394, D17402, and D17501).

Maud Whatley
January 2016

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.609.

How to cite

Maud Whatley, ‘On the River Medway at Chatham, with Upnor Castle, and Rochester in the Distance c.1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-on-the-river-medway-at-chatham-with-upnor-castle-and-r1184723, accessed 04 January 2025.