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

This work is painted on a toned white wove paper. There is no watermark but Bower states that this paper was probably made by Whatman and that it may have been cut from the same sheet as another view of Rochester (Tate D00180; Turner Bequest XVII E). The image is on the felt side of the sheet.1

First Turner drew lightly in graphite pencil, followed by several applications of light wash. Further detailing was then added using a fine brush. Bower suggests that Indian ink was also used in the composition but this has not been analysed.

There are several fingerprints on both sides of the sheet in a brown oil-based paint. Around these prints oily staining is evident. There is also a splash of the same paint in the centre of the sheet, on the castle wall.

In the top left corner of the recto there is a faint red stain. Closer examination revealed this to be the remains of the letters ‘X’ and ‘D’, which were handwritten in red ink. These refer to the Finberg number and they were presumably written by Finberg himself in the 1930s. When the picture is the correct way up the letters are the wrong way around. The watercolour around them has also been scrubbed away. This suggests that these letters were written here by mistake (usually the Finberg number is in the bottom right-hand corner of the recto). When the mistake was realised it seems that attempts were made to remove the ink. Although this clearly reduced the red pigment it also removed some of the watercolour from the surrounding area. During conservation charcoal dust was used to infill the white patch in the sky caused by the removal of watercolour in this area. The dust was applied in tiny quantities using a cotton wool swab.

This is an unfinished watercolour, apparently in a style consistent with other sheets in this group, which were perhaps envisaged as a series of finished views analogous to the ‘12 Views on the River Avon’; see Tate D00108, D00109, D00111 and D00114 (Turner Bequest VII A, B, D, G).

This drawing provides the best evidence for the existence of an early oil painting by Turner, ‘a view of Rochester Castle, with fishermen drawing their boats ashore in a gale of wind’. The work is not known, but Thornbury’s second-hand description of it (related by ‘one who has seen it’) is very detailed and specific:

The view, the atmospheric effect, and the foreground boats in this watercolour all suggest that a subject like the one Thornbury’s informant describes might have been developed from it. Compare the study of the Hot-Wells, Bristol (Tate D00389; Turner Bequest XXII O), from which Turner evolved a watercolour that he exhibited under the title The rising squall, Hot Wells, from St Vincent’s Rock, Bristol, in 1793, the year Thornbury gives for the execution of the Rochester oil.

Verso:

Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.