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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth 1844 > Louis-Philippe at Portsmouth sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Semaphore Tower, Eighteen Gun Battery and Round Tower at Portsmouth; the Gosport Blockhouse 1844

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Semaphore Tower, Eighteen Gun Battery and Round Tower at Portsmouth; the Gosport Blockhouse’ 1844
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Recto:
The Semaphore Tower, Eighteen Gun Battery and Round Tower at Portsmouth; the Gosport Blockhouse 1844
D35708
Turner Bequest CCCLXII 13
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 74 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘13’ above centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘13’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXII – 13’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned vertically, there are two waterfront views here. As Ian Warrell has noted,1 the buildings in the upper drawing include Portsmouth’s former Square Tower semaphore station, with the Eighteen Gun Battery and Round Tower seen to the north-west from the Saluting Platform. Compare Edward William Cooke’s 1836 painting of the Semaphore at Portsmouth (National Maritime Museum, London). For other views of the tower, see under folio 2 verso (Tate D35688); compare in particular folios 5 recto and 14 verso (D35962, D35709).
Below, again as noted by Warrell,2 is the Gosport blockhouse to the west across the harbour’s mouth. The ‘13’ inscribed above it signifies the number of semi-circular gun ports on its seaward side. See also folios 5 recto and 20 recto (Tate D35692, D35721).
1
See Warrell 2013, p.10.
2
Ibid.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
September 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Semaphore Tower, Eighteen Gun Battery and Round Tower at Portsmouth; the Gosport Blockhouse 1844 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-semaphore-tower-eighteen-gun-battery-and-round-tower-at-r1185653, accessed 17 July 2024.