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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland, Meuse and Cologne Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Shakespeare Cliff and the Western Heights, Dover, from the Beach West of the Harbour 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Shakespeare Cliff and the Western Heights, Dover, from the Beach West of the Harbour’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Verso:
Shakespeare Cliff and the Western Heights, Dover, from the Beach West of the Harbour 1825
D19408
Turner Bequest CCXV 4a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Partial watermark ‘Al | 18’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The distinctive profile of Shakespeare Cliff is seen to the west of Dover Harbour,1 with the defences on the Western Heights to its north towards the right. Compare the top sketch on folio 3 recto (D19405) and see under Tate D18842 (Turner Bequest CCXV 1a) in the contemporary Holland sketchbook for other views of it there and elsewhere.
The buildings in the middle distance may be those seen to the north on folio 3 verso (D19406), as part of a three-page panorama looking north and eastwards, continued on the recto and folio 5 recto opposite (D19407, D19409). These show the viewpoint as being south-west of the old southern pier at the harbour entrance, where the carefully differentiated buildings have not survived extensive subsequent developments. For other Dover views in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 1 recto (D19401).

Matthew Imms
September 2020

1
See Finberg 1909, II, p.662.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Shakespeare Cliff and the Western Heights, Dover, from the Beach West of the Harbour 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-shakespeare-cliff-and-the-western-heights-dover-from-the-r1202763, accessed 21 November 2024.