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

Finberg’s tentative identification of the subject is correct. Turner’s viewpoint is Lynmouth’s original pier, looking south along Lynmouth Street. A second pier has since been built to the left, parallel with the waterfront, to form a narrow, self-contained harbour beside the confluence of the East and West Lyn Rivers as they meet the sea. The houses climbing the hill remain recognisable. Lynton is high on the hill to the right, with Summer House Hill, around which the two rivers converge, in the distance. Thomas Daniell’s 1814 aquatint Lynmouth, on the Coast of North Devon, from his series A Voyage Round Great Britain (Tate impression: T02730), shows the same view.

The distant hills are continued a little to the left on D40294 (the verso of D08948; CXXVI 3). The individual leaves of the sketchbook were apparently still oversewn together at that point (see the introduction), as the two parts of the drawing stop short of the stitch holes towards their inner edges. Turner made another sketch looking south from a little inland on D08948; see the entry for the latter for other views of Lynton and Lynmouth.

Technical notes:

There are five sets of stitch holes near the left-hand edge. There is a small piece missing at the bottom right corner, matching similar losses to leaves earlier in Finberg’s numbered sequence (D08946–D08951, D40294, D40295; CXXVI 1–5a), with which the present leaf was once bound (see the introduction to the sketchbook.

Verso:

Blank