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

Engraved:
Etching and mezzotint by Turner and William Say, ‘COAST OF YORKSHIRE. | near Whitby.’, published Turner, 1 January 1811

On his way to Scotland in 1801, Turner travelled along the Yorkshire coast north from Scarborough, and made the pencil drawing (Ruskin School Collection, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)1 which was the source for this Liber Studiorum composition. The Oxford sketch was originally a leaf of the Smaller Fonthill sketchbook (some pages at Tate; Turner Bequest XLVIII); several other Liber designs were derived from the same book: Drawing of the Clyde (indirectly), Rivaux Abbey and Dumblain Abbey, Scotland (for drawings see Tate D08122, D08154, D08157; Turner Bequest CXVI U, CXVII Z, CXVIII C), and Solway Moss.2

The original drawing is rapid and nervous, with the cliffs almost entirely lacking in detail, and no indication of time of day, weather or the state of the sea; the foreground is slightly more developed with intermittent heavy shading defining the rocks, and there are three or four tiny figures in the distance on the right. However, as Herrmann has noted, in the Liber drawing the scene ‘was transformed into a dramatic episode; the small figures become survivors from a shipwreck, surrounded by angry seas, threatening sky and much local incident.’3 Indeed, Gillian Forrester compares the mood and intention of the composition to the dramatic 1804 oil An Avalanche in the Alps (Tate, T00772) by the London-based, Alsatian painter Philippe Jacques (Philip James) de Loutherbourg, which Turner could have seen when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy or in the collection of his patron Sir John Leicester.4 In Turner’s composition, the snow is replaced by sea spray, but the sense of humanity at the mercy of greater forces of is similar. The rocky foreground is similar to that depicted in another Liber drawing of about the same date showing Dunstanburgh Castle, about a hundred miles to the north on the same coast (Tate D08118; Turner Bequest CXVI Q).

The composition is recorded, as ‘5[:] 3 Coast of Yorkshire’, in the Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12157; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 24), in a draft schedule of the first ten parts of the Liber (D12156–D12158; CLIV (a) 23a–24a)5 dated by Finberg and Forrester to before the middle of 1808.6 It also appears later in the sketchbook, again as ‘Coast of Yorkshire’, in a list of ‘Marine’ subjects (Tate D12164; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 27a).7

The Liber Studiorum etching and mezzotint engraving, etched by Turner and engraved by William Say, bears the publication date 1 January 1811 and was issued to subscribers as ‘COAST OF YORKSHIRE. | near Whitby.’ in part 5 (Rawlinson/Finberg nos.22–26;8 see also Tate D08127, D08128, D08130, D08131; Turner Bequest CXVI Z, CXVII A, C, D). Tate holds impressions of the preliminary outline etching (A00958) and the published engraving (A00959). It is one of nine published Liber subjects in Turner’s ‘Marine’ category (see also Tate D08104, D08105, D08114, D08125, D08133, D08138; CXVI C, D, M, X, CXVII F, K).

Technical notes:

There is a small surface loss to the cliffs on the left. There is very light and vague pencil sketching, overlaid with heavy wash strokes to indicate the most prominent lines of the composition. The overall brown colour results from the use of one umber pigment. All lights have been scratched out rather than reserved, with the sea birds made from one brushstroke and a scratch.1 Rawlinson noted the difficulty of preserving Turner’s subtle atmospheric effects once they were translated into mezzotint: ‘In the Drawing, and in very early impressions of the Print, the sea is very fine, especially the effect of the spray driving up the cliffs. This was, however, too delicate a piece of engraver’s work to stand much printing’.2

Verso:

Blank, save for inscriptions.

Inscribed in pencil ‘12’ [circled] and ‘B’ centre, and ‘D.08129’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘[crown] | N•G | CXVII – B’ bottom left

Thin tape and the residue of mounting are evident all round the edges, with extensive grey-brown spatterings (of wash?); the right-hand two thirds of the sheet are darkened and rubbed.