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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Marseilles to Genoa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Views of the Estérel Coast, from the Sea 1828

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views of the Estérel Coast, from the Sea’ 1828
Folio 3 Recto:
Views of the Estérel Coast, from the Sea 1828
D21137
Turner Bequest CCXXXI 3
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 174 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘3’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXI 3’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page, turned horizontally, contains a jumble of rough fragments of rocky coastline. The forms are too schematic to pinpoint the subjects with precision, although the geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified the general subject as the Estérel coast between Fréjus and Cannes.1 This mountainous region is characterised by the red colour of the volcanic terrain, caused by high levels of porphyry in the rock. Turner travelled along this stretch of coastline by boat and made several swift studies of the passing scenery from the sea, see for example folios 1 verso and 2 recto (D21134–D21135).
1
Roland Courtot, ‘Les Carnets de William Turner: Recherches d’identification et de localisation des dessins’, unpublished research notes, Université de Provence à Aix, April 2008, p.2, as ‘massif de l’Estérel’ (shared with former Tate cataloguer Nicola Moorby in email correspondence at that date).
Technical notes:
There is a thin, curved sliver missing from the bottom (outer) edge, likely as part of the unfinished edge of the original sheet folded and trimmed to form the gathering; compare the slight irregularity of folio 4 (D21139–D21140).

Nicola Moorby
March 2017

Revised by Hannah Kaspar
November 2024

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Views of the Estérel Coast, from the Sea 1828’, catalogue entry, March 2017, revised by Hannah Kaspar, November 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/views-of-the-esterel-coast-from-the-sea-r1209815, accessed 15 April 2025.