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

D17169, D25364, D25366, D25380, D25386, D25392, D25410, D25423, D25426, D25436, D25437, D25443, D25450, D25477, D36117, D36118, D36328, D41468, D41484
Turner Bequest CXCVI E, CCLXIII 242, 244, 257, 257v, 263, 269, 287, 300, 303, 313, 314, 320, 327, 354, CCCLXIV 270, 271, CCCLXV 37

This section comprises ‘colour beginnings’ of varying degrees of finish and a few more developed compositions, showing locations along the South Coast of England and in the West Country, including some inland subjects there; for a discussion of the function of such works in general, see the Introduction to the ‘England and Wales Colour Studies c.1825–39’ section.1

As set out by the present author in the Introduction to the ‘West Country 1811’ section of the catalogue, Turner first thoroughly explored the area in that year, concentration on key sites along the coast as he gathered topographical drawings for watercolours commissioned by W.B. Cooke for a proposed series of engraved Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England. There have been various detailed accounts of the commissioning and execution of the project by Cooke and his associates, in collaboration with publishers John Murray and the Arches, particularly in terms of Turner’s watercolours and the engravings made from them.2 Initially he was asked to provide twenty-four designs, but his contribution eventually ran to forty; none of the finished watercolours is in the Turner Bequest or the main Tate Collection. Cooke’s Ports of England scheme included some of the same locations (see Alice Rylance-Watson’s ‘Ports of England c.1822–8’ section), and may also come into play in terms of the variant compositions catalogued here.

The Southern Coast engravings were issued between 1814 and 1826 and subsequently as a book, published by John and Arthur Arch and others as Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England, from Drawings Made Principally by J.M.W. Turner, R.A. and Engraved by W.B. Cooke, George Cooke, and Other Eminent Engravers (London 1826). A copy with volumes I and II bound as one is held in the Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, and separately accessioned plates in the Tate Collection are noted below, where the designs to which colour studies included here can be related are listed as numbered and titled in the 1826 edition. This presented the series in a geographical sequence, clockwise from Whitstable in Kent to Watchet in Somerset, following the coast from the Thames Estuary via the South Coast to the Bristol Channel.

Tate D25477 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 354) may represent an idea for a Southern Coast-type composition including nearby Walmer Castle.

Tate D25423 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 300) represents ‘sand-landing’ on the Bristol Channel coast of North Devon or Somerset; see the entry for discussion of a loose watercolour described as a ‘Colour beginning: A coastal landscape with a figure in the foreground’ and dated to about 1822–4 (private collection)11 to which it has been compared.

Depending on how far inland one might extend the notion of the ‘Southern Coast’ (Lulworth Castle being well away from the sea, for example), other studies included here could relate to that scheme, or equally well to Cooke’s short-lived contemporary Rivers of Devon (see the ‘Rivers of Devon c.1814–15’ section). The remaining sheets are:

Tate D17169 (Turner Bequest CXCVI E): hulks on the River Tamar, near Plymouth