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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Autumn Tour of Northern France 1845 > Dieppe and Kent Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Folkestone Harbour 1845

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Folkestone Harbour’ 1845
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Verso:
?Folkestone Harbour 1845
D35512
Turner Bequest CCCLXI 14
Pencil on white wove paper, 86 x 111 mm
Watermark ‘W King | 1842’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Boats ... | ...]’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
What Finberg understood as a ‘Harbour, with town, and castle on cliff’1 may rather show Folkestone’s harbour (see folio 5 verso; D35496) with what appear to be the piers of the new railway viaduct at Foord (see folio 6 recto; D35497) in the distance to the north-west towards the left, and separate local details above.
This subject, in relatively soft pencil, continues on folio 15 recto opposite (D35514), but it has been drawn over using a sharper line with a less coherent double-page sketch, with what seem to be buildings near the gutter here linked by lines arcing below to the jagged silhouette of a large building on the opposite page. This is apparently the church at Eu, as discussed under D35514.
The blank recto is inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘14’ and stamped in black ‘CCCLXI – 14’ at the bottom right; it bears very slight pencil strokes at the top left, carried over from the drawing on folio 13 verso opposite (D35510; Turner Bequest CCCLXI 13). For numerous instances of blank, unaccessioned rectos in this sketchbook, see the technical notes in the Introduction.
1
Finberg 1909, II, p.1171.
Technical notes:
There is some brown staining at the gutter, possibly indicating water damage in the 1928 Tate flood.

Matthew Imms
September 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?Folkestone Harbour 1845 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, December 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-folkestone-harbour-r1183936, accessed 21 November 2024.