Joseph Mallord William Turner St Mawes Harbour 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 136 Recto:
St Mawes Harbour 1811
D08620
Turner Bequest CXXIII 133
Turner Bequest CXXIII 133
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 75 x 117 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[...] talking | Women | Children | [...] fish’ bottom left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘133’ bottom right, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXXIII – 133’ bottom left, descending vertically
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[...] talking | Women | Children | [...] fish’ bottom left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘133’ bottom right, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXXIII – 133’ bottom left, descending vertically
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1990
Painting and Poetry: Turner’s ‘Verse Book’ and his Work of 1804–1812, Tate Gallery, London, June–September 1990 (57, reproduced).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.349, CXXIII 133, as ‘Possibly St. Mawes.’.
1979
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Picturesque Views in England and Wales 1825–1838, London 1979, p.155.
1981
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Rivers, Harbours and Coasts, London 1981, p.152.
1982
Evelyn Joll and Martin Butlin, L’opera completa di Turner 1793–1829, Classici dell’arte, Milan 1982, p.101 under no.192.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.87 under no.123.
1986
Eric Shanes, J.M.W. Turner: The Foundations of Genius, exhibition catalogue, Taft Museum, Cincinnati 1986, p.55.
1988
Sam Smiles, ‘Picture Notes [on St Mawes views]’, Turner Studies, vol.8, no.1, Summer 1988, pp.54, 57 note 2.
1990
Eric Shanes, Turner’s England 1810–38, London 1990, pp.64 under no.40, 283 note 34.
1990
Andrew Wilton and Rosalind Mallord Turner, Painting and Poetry: Turner’s ‘Verse Book’ and his Work of 1804–1812, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990, pp.141–2 no.57, reproduced, as ‘the Harbour at St Mawes, Cornwall’.
The first short word of Turner’s inscription is partly obscured by the stamped Turner Bequest number.
Eric Shanes has noted this sketch as a source for the watercolour St Mawes, Cornwall of about 1823 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven),1 engraved in 1824 for the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England2 (see the concordance of the series in the 1811 tour introduction). Elsewhere, Shanes also lists it as the basis of a second, untraced watercolour with the same title, of about 1828,3 engraved in 1830 for the later series Picturesque Views in England and Wales; he describes the relationship as ‘very slight’4 although the main elements of topography and activity seen in both versions are traceable to the ‘tiny rough sketch’.5
Having been ‘very attracted’6 to the scene, Turner had initially painted a version in oils, St Mawes in the Pilchard Season, which he exhibited at his gallery in 1812 (Tate N00484).7 Complete with figures and a note about ‘fish’, the present drawing was made within the harbour itself, with a consequent lateral compression of the relationship of the town and the two castles to the south-west, followed in the oil and England and Wales versions. Pilchard fishing is mentioned in Turner’s verses on folio 138 verso (D08624; CXXIII 135a).8
Shanes notes a larger, more detailed drawing of St Mawes in the Ivy Bridge to Penzance sketchbook (Tate D08909; Turner Bequest CXXV 30, incorrectly identified by Finberg as ‘Falmouth Harbour’),9 made from a viewpoint on the shore curving south-east from St Mawes and including the pier enclosing the harbour in the middle distance, as an additional source for the Southern Coast watercolour; in this version the fish and figures noted on the quay in the present drawing are transferred to the beach in the foreground.
Shanes 1981, p.152, and 1990, pp.64, 283 note 34; see also Smiles 1988, pp.54, 57 note 2, and Wilton and Turner 1990, p.142.
Technical notes:
There is some offsetting in the sky from the ink inscription on folio 135 verso opposite (D08619; CXXIII 132a).
Verso:
Blank
Matthew Imms
June 2011
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘St Mawes Harbour 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www