Tour of the West Country 1813
From the entry
Turner had first explored Devon in 1811 during his clockwise journey round the whole of the South West of England, following the coastline with occasional forays a few miles inland; the six relevant Turner Bequest sketchbooks are catalogued in the ‘West Country 1811’ section. He made a longer return visit to Devon in 1813, centred on Plymouth. Unusually, there are detailed eye-witness accounts of many of Turner’s activities and movements covered in the present section. The artist appears to have returned for the last time in 1814, although this supposition is based mainly on a subsequent letter rather than any firmly datable sketches. This issue is discussed in the Introduction to the separate section of this catalogue covering a proposed 1814 tour of Devon and Cornwall, comprising the Devon Rivers, No.1, Devon Rivers, No.2 and Devonshire Rivers, No.3, and Wharfedale sketchbooks (Tate; Turner Bequest CXXXII, CXXXIII, CXXXIV). Focusing as he did on Continental travels from 1817 onwards ...
Plymouth, Hamoaze Sketchbook 1813
D09218–D09481, D40579–D40581, D40583, D41231
Turner Bequest CXXXI 1–189a
D09218–D09481, D40579–D40581, D40583, D41231
Turner Bequest CXXXI 1–189a
References
Turner had first explored Devon in 1811 during his clockwise journey round the whole of the South West of England, following the coastline with occasional forays a few miles inland; the six relevant Turner Bequest sketchbooks are catalogued in the ‘West Country 1811’ section. He made a longer return visit to Devon in 1813, centred on Plymouth. Unusually, there are detailed eye-witness accounts of many of Turner’s activities and movements covered in the present section. The artist appears to have returned for the last time in 1814, although this supposition is based mainly on a subsequent letter rather than any firmly datable sketches. This issue is discussed in the Introduction to the separate section of this catalogue covering a proposed 1814 tour of Devon and Cornwall, comprising the Devon Rivers, No.1, Devon Rivers, No.2 and Devonshire Rivers, No.3, and Wharfedale sketchbooks (Tate; Turner Bequest CXXXII, CXXXIII, CXXXIV). Focusing as he did on Continental travels from 1817 onwards, Turner seems never to have revisited the West Country, but used this source material for many years to come.
In addition to the sketchbooks included in the present section, The Vale of Heathfield sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CXXXVII) was in use over a few years before and after 1811–13. It includes notes from a guidebook on Dorset and Devon sites which Turner visited in 1811 as well as views of places visited in that year, together with others associated with the 1813 Devon stay (between Tate D10256 and D10289; Turner Bequest CXXXVII 38 and 55a). Its extensive Sussex content means that it has been grouped in the ‘East Sussex c.1806–20’ section, albeit with entries on the individual West Country subjects by the present author.
Sam Smiles, who has made the most detailed investigations of Turner in and around Plymouth,1 suggests that he first met local painter Ambrose Bowden Johns (1776–1858)2 in 1811, perhaps through a friend, the father of the young painter Charles Lock Eastlake (1793–1865). Subsequently Sir Charles, President of the Royal Academy and one of Turner’s executors, Eastlake had written to his father from London to encourage a warm reception for Turner as he passed through Plymouth.3 In his biography of Turner (1862 and subsequent editions), Thornbury quoted Eastlake’s reminiscences concerning what appears to be the 1813 visit:
Turner visited Plymouth (my native town) while I was staying there in the summer of 1813, or perhaps 1814 (1812?), painting portraits. As he wished to see the scenery of the river Tamar, I accompanied him, together with Mr. Ambrose Johns, of Plymouth (a landscape-painter of great merit, lately deceased at a great age), to a cottage near Calstock, the residence of my aunt, Miss Pearce, where we all stayed for a few days. From that point as a centre, Turner made various excursions, and the result of one of his rambles was a sketch of the scene which afterwards grew into the celebrated picture of ‘Crossing the Brook.’4 The bridge in that picture is Calstock Bridge [actually Gunnislake]; some mining works are indicated in the middle distance. The extreme distance extends to the mouth of the Tamar, the harbour of Hamoaze, the hills of Mount Edgcumbe, and those on the opposite side of Plymouth Sound. The whole scene is extremely faithful.5
Several Vale of Heathfield drawings made on the River Tamar in the neighbourhood of Gunnislake (including Tate D10271, D10273; Turner Bequest CXXXVII 46a, 47a) relate to the major painting described by Eastlake above, Crossing the Brook (Tate N00497),6 which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1815. Meanwhile Turner made a more extensive survey of the area in the Devon Rivers, No.1 sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CXXXII), here allocated to 1814. As Eric Shanes was the first to recognise, the Review at Portsmouth sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CXXXVI), largely comprising studies of a naval review in June 1814, includes some further sketches in the Gunnislake-Calstock area, mostly in a sequence preceding the Portsmouth views;7 it is a moot point whether that book was used in Devon in 1813 or 1814. The Chemistry and Apuleia sketchbook in the present section includes studies relating to the painting Apullia [sic] in Search of Appullus (Tate N00495),8 submitted for exhibition at the British Institution early in 1814. At first glance the painting was a transcription of Claude Lorrain’s Jacob with Laban and his Daughters (Petworth House, Sussex), but with many variant details, and some of the loose Chemistry and Apuleia drawings at once evoke Gunnislake and aspects of both Crossing the Brook and Apullia. Sam Smiles mentions both works in the context of Turner’s ‘pressing need to come to terms’ in the mid-1810s with the classical landscapes and Italianate light of Claude9 (1604/5–1682), whom Turner admired and emulated.10
Eastlake continued:
Turner made his sketches in pencil and by stealth. His companions, observing his peculiarity, were careful not to intrude upon him. After he returned to Plymouth, in the neighbourhood of which he remained some weeks, Mr. Johns fitted up a small portable painting-box, containing some prepared paper for oil sketches, as well as the other necessary materials. ... As he sometimes wanted assistance in the use of the box, the presence of Johns was indispensable, and after a few days he made his oil sketches freely in our presence. Johns accompanied him always; I was only with them occasionally.11
A Valley in Devonshire (Leeds City Art Galleries)26
View over Plymouth Harbour (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts)27
A Devonshire Valley (private collection)28
Definite or possible links have been established by Smiles between three pencil drawings in the Plymouth, Hamoaze sketchbook and these oil sketches, showing ‘the same locations, though not from identical viewpoints’,29 and presumably made on the same occasions in 1813 (Tate D09244, D09292, D09295; Turner Bequest CXXXI 27, 69 and 72); a similar link can be made with Tate D09220 (CXXXI 3).
Smiles has found contemporary references to Turner’s 1813 visit in the diary of the Plymouth solicitor and patron of the arts Henry Woollcombe, including a dinner he and Turner attended on 27 August at ‘Wm. Eastlake’s’ and a breakfast on 1 September.30 The lengthiest account of Turner’s 1813 visit was provided by the journalist and author Cyrus Redding (1785–1870), at that time editor of the West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser.31 The personal anecdotes from his 1852 obituary of the artist32 were recycled in memoirs of 185833 and 1866,34 and the first two of these were heavily quoted by Thornbury.35 Finberg also presented much of the 1852 material verbatim.36
In 1852 Redding recalled meeting Turner in 1812, although the circumstances are not described:
In the following year he made a tour into Devonshire, where I happened to be. He was received with great attention by several discriminating friends of the fine arts. He wished to explore the scenery of the southwest of the county, and everything in the way of accommodation was afforded him. He was accompanied in his excursions by one or more friends at whose houses he had been hospitably received. Boats and conveyances were placed at his disposal.37 ... Among his entertainers ... [was] the late John Collier, then resident at Mount Tamar, and subsequently member of parliament for Plymouth.38
By 1868 Redding was less certain:
I am not certain of the year, but I think it was 1811, when I made the acquaintance of this first of English artists. He arrived ... on a professional tour. I am unable to recollect where we first met; I imagine it to have been at the table of the father of the present Solicitor General, Sir Robert Collier, whose house at Mount Tamar [in Plymouth] was open to his friends twice a week ...39
Redding noted that Turner described himself as ‘a Devonshire man’, specifically from Barnstaple, while they ‘were sailing together in a boat on the St. Germains [i.e. St Germans] river, near Ince Castle’.40 Turner’s father was from South Molton, near Barnstaple, in the north of the county. Redding was bemused by Turner’s working methods:
He would only make a few outlines upon paper, scarcely intelligible to others. The next day or days after he would have the sketch filled up in oil upon millboard, not much larger than a sheet of letter-paper, still confused to the unpractised eye. Yet in his finished pictures the details were given in a manner truly wonderful, so that it might be imagined he must have made other sketches, which was not the case, or else that he executed them by some magical process.41
Redding gave a detailed account of a short voyage with Turner and James Demaria (a scene painter at the Opera House in London, whom Turner may already have known)42 from Plymouth Sound, south to the Mew Stone and east along the Devon coast to Burgh Island in Bigbury Bay, including the prospect of a meal of ‘hot lobsters ... just taken from the sea’.43 For details of this trip see the entry for Tate D09476 (Turner Bequest CXXXI 186a) in the Plymouth, Hamoaze sketchbook, which contains a long sequence of drawings corresponding to Redding’s recollections. The return was made overland the next day:
When we came to the La[i]ra passage [the Plym Estuary], we met Lord Boringdon (afterwards Earl of Morley), who invited Turner, Demaria, and myself to Saltram, to dine and sleep, the following day. We went accordingly. In the morning we ascended the high ground in the park, whence there is a fine view. There is also some fine scenery near the eastern entrance, at the mouth of the Plym, and Turner made some sketches here.44
Turner had first sketched Saltram House in 1811, in the Cornwall and Devon sketchbook (Tate D41277; Turner Bequest CXXV a 2), as well as views nearby in the Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (Tate D08561, D08567; Turner Bequest CXXIII 101a, 104a). There are sketches in the Plymouth, Hamoaze book (Tate D09306, D09400; Turner Bequest CXXXI 81, 148a) and views of the surroundings on adjacent pages; others in the area in the 1814 Devon Rivers, No.2 sketchbook, including Tate D09719 (Turner Bequest CXXXIII 43).
Saltram stands above the east bank of the Plym, west of Plympton and about three miles east of Plymouth; since 1957 it has been in the care of the National Trust.45 It was acquired by the Parker family in 1712, and after 1743 extensive improvements were made to the house and grounds, with important design work by Robert Adam (1728–1792).46 There were minor alterations to the house in the late 1810s, but otherwise it is much as Turner saw it.47 The then owner was John Parker, 2nd Baron Boringdon (1772–1840), who was created 1st Earl of Morley in 1815.48 His father, the first Lord Boringdon, had been a friend and patron of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), who had been born at nearby Plympton and was the founding President of the Royal Academy and a hero of Turner’s. There are numerous portraits by Reynolds at Saltram,49 among a collection of Dutch and Italian Old Masters largely acquired at that time along with works by contemporaries such as George Stubbs (1724–1806) and Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807).50 Before discussing Turner’s reactions to works by Stubbs and Kauffman, Redding noted:51 ‘Among the guests at Saltram was Madame Catalani, who sang some of her favourite airs.’52 The singer performed at Exeter and at Truro, east and west of Plymouth, on 23 August and from 31 August respectively,53 and at Plymouth itself between 6 and 11 September.54
Redding continued:
On looking at some of the wonderful fancy-works of this artist painted a little subsequently, I perceived that several were composed of bits of scenery we had visited in company. ... I was with Turner when he sketched Plymouth Sound, with part of Mount Edgecumbe; when he visited Trematon Castle, Saltash, the Wear Head, Calstock – in fact, all the views he made on the banks of that picturesque river, which have been since engraved.55
Redding’s further reminiscences are worth quoting at length for the unusual picture they give of Turner, off guard in convivial and relaxed circumstances:
We had one day reached the Wear Head of the Tamar, no great way below the Duke of Bedford’s cottage at Endsleigh, when night came on. Turner was struck with admiration at the bridge above the Wear, which he declared altogether Italian.56
He recalled that owing to a shortage of transport to nearby Tavistock, he and Turner made do in the parlour of a ‘miserable little inn’:57
Before six in the morning we rose, and went down towards the bridge. The air was balmy; the strong light between the hills, the dark umbrage, and the flashing water presented a beautiful early scene. Turner sketched the bridge, but appeared, from changing his position several times, as if he had tried more than one sketch, or could not please himself as to the best point.58
These may be some of the Vale of Heathfield drawings, used for Crossing the Brook. Redding was pleased to note:
Turner said that he had never seen so many natural beauties in so limited an extent of country as he saw in the vicinity of Plymouth. Some of the scenes hardly appeared to belong to this island.59 Mount Edgecumbe particularly delighted him; and he visited it three or four times. I have now in my possession a pencil sketch, of the roughest kind, which he drew. ... His slender graphic memoranda induce me to think that he possessed the most extraordinary memory for treasuring up the details of what he saw in nature of any individual that ever existed.60
Redding also recalled a picnic Turner provided on Mount Edgcumbe for ‘eight or nine of the party, including some ladies’, with ‘an ample supply of cold meats, shell-fish, and wines’, when ‘Turner was exceedingly agreeable for one whose language was more epigrammatic and terse than complimentary upon most occasions.’61
Turner subsequently maintained a friendship and correspondence with Johns,62 as discussed in the Introduction to the 1814 Devon and Cornwall tour. Smiles has concluded that only the Plymouth, Hamoaze sketchbook can be firmly dated to 1813 because of the Mewstone and Burgh Island sequence,63 described by Redding as preceding the visit to Saltram. ‘Until such time as further evidence is forthcoming the precise date of these sketchbooks must remain unresolved’64, although the present catalogue attempts to clarify the issue, as set out below.
Given that the 1813 stay round Plymouth and Calstock appears to have been such an intensively social event, with others often if not always on hand, there may only have been time for the Plymouth, Hamoaze drawings (numerous in themselves), the oil sketches and, probably, the careful Tamar and Tavy views in the Vale of Heathfield sketchbook, as Turner must surely have made some in that area in 1813 to explain Redding’s account and his subsequent recognition of the landscape in Crossing the Brook. The Chemistry and Apuleia sketchbook is likely to be from 1813 too, with its Bristol views and studies prefiguring both 1815’s Crossing the Brook and 1814’s Apullia in Search of Appullus, as discussed above. The author is very grateful for the opportunity to discuss the likely dating of the 1813 and 1814 West Country material with Eric Shanes, who independently reached a similar conclusion in the course of research for his forthcoming biography of Turner.65
The main impetus for the 1811 visit had been the commissioning of watercolours to be engraved for the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England project by W.B. Cooke and others.66 Initially Turner was asked to provide twenty-four designs, but his contribution eventually ran to forty, and as indicated below, some were based on later sketches, covered in the present section. The engravings were issued between 1814 and 1826 and subsequently as a book: 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.
As a full concordance for the West Country designs (along with a checklist of the Kent, Sussex and Hampshire subjects) is given in the Introduction to the 1811 tour, only the relevant South Devon Southern Coast plates are listed again below, as numbered and titled in the 1826 edition, which presents the overall series in clockwise sequence around the coast. Details of the source watercolours are given, as are references to the most directly relevant pencil sketches. Other drawings at the same sites are cross-referenced in individual catalogue entries where relevant.
Southern Coast: vol.II:
57. The Mew Stone, at the Entrance of Plymouth Sound, Devonshire. Watercolour, c.1814 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin); engraved 1816: Tate T04383–T04385, T05392, T05393, T05970.67 Sketches: Plymouth, Hamoaze sketchbook (working backwards between Tate D09462 and D09448; Turner Bequest CXXXI 179a, 172a)
Andrew Wilton also lists an untraced watercolour of about 1820, Plymouth Harbour: Towing in French Prizes, as a related subject.69 There are numerous other West Country watercolours, mostly associated with engraving projects. Again, those from 1813 sketches are set out in detail here:
The Rivers of Devon, 1815–23:70
The following work was not engraved for the series, but has been linked to it:73
Marine Views, 1824–5:75
The Ports of England, 1826–8; and The Harbours of England, 1856:77
Little Liber, c.1823–6:79
Picturesque Views in England and Wales, 1827–38:81
Turner’s few later Devon subjects are not strictly topographical; they are noted in the Introduction to the 1811 tour.
For Johns see John Gage, Collected Correspondence of J.M.W. Turner with an Early Diary and a Memoir by George Jones, Oxford 1980, pp.261–2; and Smiles 1987, pp.11–13.
See Smiles 1987, p.11; and the introduction to the ‘West Country 1811’ tour in the present catalogue.
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.93–4 no.130, pl.123 (colour).
Email to the author, 20 December 2012, in connection with Shanes’s research on his forthcoming biography of Turner.
See Ian Warrell and others, Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery, London 2012.
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.364, CXXX A, as ‘Village in a hollow’; Butlin and Joll 1984, p.132 no.213, pl.214, as ‘Milton Combe?’.
Finberg 1909, I, p.364, CXXX B, as ‘English landscape’ (verso not listed); Butlin and Joll 1984, p.133 no.214, pls.215, 228.
Finberg 1909, I, p.365, CXXX E, as ‘A river valley’; Butlin and Joll 1984, p.133 no.217, pl.218 (colour).
Finberg 1909, I, p.365, CXXX F, as ‘Bridge, with cottage and trees’; Butlin and Joll 1984, p.133, pl.219 (colour).
Finberg 1909, I, p.365, CXXX G, as ‘River, with distant town’; Butlin and Joll 1984, p.133 no.219, pl.220, as ‘Distant View of Plymouth from the North’.
Finberg 1909, I, p.365, CXXX K, as ‘A Devonshire bridge’; Butlin and Joll 1984, p.134 no.223, pl.224.
‘The Diary of Henry Woollcombe’, West Devon Record Office, 710/394, quoted in Smiles 1989, p.10 and cited p.26 note 3.
See Thomas Seccombe, ‘Redding, Cyrus (1785–1870)’, revised by Ray Boston, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 20 October 2011, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23243 .
Redding 1852, p.151; see also Redding 1858, I, p.198; Thornbury 1862, I, p.201; Monkhouse 1882, p.79; and Thornbury 1897, pp.143, 151.
Redding 1852, p.151; see also Redding 1858, I, p.198; Thornbury 1862, I, p.218; Redding 1866, vol.I, pp.46–7; and Thornbury 1897, p.152.
Redding 1852, p.151; see also Redding 1858, I, p.199; Thornbury 1862, I, pp.200, 202; Redding 1866, vol.I, pp.47–8; and Thornbury 1897, p.142.
See Finberg 1961, p.200; and Jack Lindsay, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work: A Critical Biography, London 1966, pp.70, 149, 227 note 1.
Redding 1852, p.152; see also Redding 1858, I, p.199; Thornbury 1862, I, p.202; Redding 1866, vol.I, p.48; Monkhouse 1882, p.80; Thornbury 1897, p.143; and Finberg 1961, p.198.
Redding 1852, p.153; see also Thornbury 1862, I, pp.209–10; Thornbury 1897, p.146; and Finberg 1961, p.199.
See Saltram: Plympton: Devon, 5th ed., London 1971, inside front cover and p.6; see also ‘Saltram’, National Trust, accessed 27 May 2014, http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/saltram/ .
Redding 1852, p.153; see also Redding 1858, I, p.201; Thornbury 1862, I, pp.204, 210; Redding 1866, I, p.51; Thornbury 1897, p.146; and Finberg 1961, p.198.
Redding 1852, p.153; see also Redding 1858, I, p.201; Thornbury 1862, I, pp.204, 210; Redding 1866, I, p.51; Thornbury 1897, p.146; and Finberg 1961, p.198.
Redding 1852, p.153; see also Redding 1858, I, p.202; Thornbury 1862, I, pp.205, 211; Redding 1866, I, p.65; and Thornbury 1897, p.147.
Redding 1852, p.153; see also Thornbury 1862, I, p.211; Redding 1866, I, p.53; Thornbury 1897, p.147; and Finberg 1961, p.200.
Redding 1852, p.154; see also Redding 1858, I, p.202; Thornbury 1862, I, pp.205, 211–12; Redding 1866, I, pp.52–3; Monkhouse 1882, p.80; Thornbury 1897, pp.147–8; and Finberg 1961, pp.200–1.
Redding 1852, p.154; see also Redding 1858, I, p.202; Thornbury 1862, I, pp.205, 213; Redding 1866, I, p.53; Monkhouse 1882, p.80; Thornbury 1897, p.148; and Finberg 1961, p.201.
Redding 1852, p.154; see also Redding 1858, I, p.202; Thornbury 1862, I, pp.205, 213–14; and Redding 1866, I, pp.53–4; and Thornbury 1897, pp.148–9.
Redding 1852, p.155; see also Redding 1858, I, p.204; Thornbury 1862, I, pp.205–6, 216; Redding 1866, I, p.54; Thornbury 1897, p.145; and Finberg 1961, p.201.
Emails of 6 and 7 December 2011 to the author, confirmed in broad terms in the course of Shanes’s Turner Society Pantzer Memorial Lecture ‘Young Mr Turner: Some New Discoveries’, delivered in London on 23 April 2014.
See particularly: W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, The Engraved Work of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., vol.I, London 1908, pp.xc–xci, 44–68 nos.88–127; Alexander J. Finberg, An Introduction to Turner’s Southern Coast, with a Catalogue of the Engravings in Which All the Known Working-Proofs Are Arranged and Described for the First Time, and a Full Transcript Is Made of Turner’s Marginal Notes and Instructions to the Engravers, London 1929; Eric Shanes, Turner’s Rivers, Harbours and Coasts, London 1981, pp.6–8; Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.350–5 nos.444–489; Eric Shanes, Turner’s England 1810–38, London 1990, pp.8–10; Luke Herrmann, ‘Southern Coast of England, Picturesque Views of [sic] the’ in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann (eds.), The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.307; for an overview of works stemming from visits to Devon, see Kennedy 2001, p.76.
Wilton 1979, p.350 no.444, reproduced; Rawlinson, I, p.cxv, II, p.415 no.851, as ‘The Banks of the Tavy’.
Artworks in this grouping
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘Tour of the West Country 1813’, May 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www