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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Kent Coast and Whaling c.1844-5 > Ideas of Folkestone Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner On the Sands: Folkestone 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘On the Sands: Folkestone’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 6 Recto:
On the Sands: Folkestone 1845
D35367
Turner Bequest CCCLVI 7
Watercolour on white wove paper, 230 x 328 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘7’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLVI–7’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner captures a Folkestone beach brightly lit, perhaps to denote morning. The silhouette of what is probably the harbour is rendered roughly in purple wash. It stands against a vivid, vast sky of translucent planes of blue, rose, and yellow. A little detail of the structure of the harbour has been added towards the left of the central register in dark blue, perhaps applied with the wooden tip of the paintbrush. Short vertical strokes in purple and brown wash extending from the right could represent a jetty.
Technical notes:
Some of the watercolour continues onto the opposite page.

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘On the Sands: Folkestone 1845 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, June 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-on-the-sands-folkestone-r1142145, accessed 25 November 2024.