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 Three Views of the South Coast of France, from the Sea, Including the Îles de Lérins near Cannes, and the Cap d'Antibes 1828

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Three Views of the South Coast of France, from the Sea, Including the Îles de Lérins near Cannes, and the Cap d'Antibes’ 1828
Folio 4 Verso:
Three Views of the South Coast of France, from the Sea, Including the Îles de Lérins near Cannes, and the Cap d’Antibes 1828
D21140
Turner Bequest CCXXXI 4a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 174 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Ste Margurita’ bottom centre of top sketch, and ‘Antibes’ bottom centre of bottom sketch
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page, turned horizontally, contains sketches of the coastline between Cannes and Antibes, as seen from a boat on the sea. The uppermost study depicts the Îles de Lérins with the Bay of Cannes beyond. Turner has labelled the vista with the name of the larger island of Sainte-Marguerite, although the visible building is actually that of the monastery on the smaller island to the south, Saint-Honorat.1 For a closer study see folio 5 recto (D21141).
Beneath this is a piece of coast with mountains beyond, which the geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified as the Cap Croisette and the Alpes-maritimes.2 Finally, at the bottom of the page is a third view, which as Turner’s inscription indicates, represents the Cap d’Antibes.3
1
Guillaud, Alfrey, Wilton and others 1981, p.285.
2
See Roland Courtot, ‘Les Carnets de William Turner: Recherches d’identification et de localisation des dessins’, unpublished research notes, Université de Provence à Aix, April 2008, p.3, as ‘Cannes’ (shared with former Tate cataloguer Nicola Moorby in email correspondence at that date).
3
Ibid.
Technical notes:
The left-hand part of the top (outer) edge falls slightly short of the trimmed fore edge, and is apparently part of the unfinished edge of the original sheet folded to form the gathering; compare the slight irregularity of folio 3 (D21137–D21138).

Nicola Moorby
March 2017

Revised by Hannah Kaspar
November 2024

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Three Views of the South Coast of France, from the Sea, Including the Îles de Lérins near Cannes, and the Cap d’Antibes 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/three-views-of-the-south-coast-of-france-from-the-sea-including-the-les-de-lerins-near-r1209818, accessed 15 April 2025.