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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Cornwall and Devon Sketchbook [pseudo ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tintagel: The Castle and a Watermill 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tintagel: The Castle and a Watermill’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 55 Recto:
Tintagel: The Castle and a Watermill 1811
D41335
Turner Bequest CXXV a 55
Pencil on white wove paper, 140 x 215 mm
Faint embossed stamp ‘BATH | [crown] | VELLUM’ within oval cartouche
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘55’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.A – 55’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s viewpoint is the valley south-east of Tintagel Castle, along the track now known as Castle Road. Tintagel Castle, on the mainland towards the top left, and the ruins on the Island peninsula beyond, shown just below and to the right of the castle, are indicated in simplified outline. The structure in the middle distance appears to be the watermill shown on folio 54 recto (D41334), where all the buildings are drawn in more detail; the mill and valley also appear on folio 53 recto (D41334). For other views of Tintagel, see under folio 9 recto (D41284).
As discussed in the introduction, the pages of this ‘sketchbook’ appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Building among rocks’ in a manuscript listing,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Mine buildings with water-wheels’.2 Figures usually corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of most sheets.
1
A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.356, as CXXV(a) 54.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356B, as CXXVa 55.
Technical notes:
The sheet is slightly wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.

Matthew Imms
July 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Tintagel: The Castle and a Watermill 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-tintagel-the-castle-and-a-watermill-r1137483, accessed 03 April 2025.