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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Piers at Ostend, with Distant Spires 1840

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Piers at Ostend, with Distant Spires’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Recto:
Piers at Ostend, with Distant Spires 1840
D30476
Turner Bequest CCCIII 9
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘9’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 9’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The two drawings were made with the page turned horizontally; slight and disjointed, they apparently show Ostend,1 with aspects of the wooden piers along outer channel to the harbour, and spires and a windmill in the distance. For numerous Ostend views on adjacent pages of this sketchbook, marking the end of Turner’s 1840 tour, see under folio 1 recto (D30460).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See also Powell 1995, p.246.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Piers at Ostend, with Distant Spires 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-piers-at-ostend-with-distant-spires-r1196236, accessed 21 November 2024.