JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A.

(1775-1851)

Coast near Dover

c.1793-97

blue and grey washes on paper

16.6 x 38 cm

P.181

It has been suggested that the cliff in the distance is Shakespeare’s Cliff (see King Lear, Act IV, Scene VI), the subject of another Turner drawing in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (inv.PD114.1950).

Turner made a tour of Kent and Sussex in the autumn of 1793 (see A.J.  Finberg, Life, p.23), during which he may have visited Dover. Wilton illustrates a watercolour of A Barn: The Interior of the ruined refectory of St Martin’s Priory, Dover, (W.35, now in the V&A, P.25-1934), which he dates, c.1793.             

The V&A watercolour may have belonged to Dr Monro which at once raises the problems of the 'Monro School' drawings, a number of which depict Dover and its neighbourhood, and the almost insuperable difficulties, in some cases, of distinguishing the different hands responsible for them. 

EJ

PROVENANCE: Mrs E. Mirylees, Aberystwyth, from whom purchased by Gallery, January 1958.

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.