The circular route that takes you through the picturesque village of Thurlestone, across to Bantham and back again via the scenic views across to South Milton Sands and Thurelstone Rock.
J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours
D19401–D19454, D19456–D19467, D19482–D19542, D19546–D19551, D41011–D41013 Turner Bequest CCXV 1–90a
Sketchbook, bound in boards, covered in grey paper quarter-bound over brown leather spine; one brass clasp; leather pencil holder along bottom edge of front cover
90 leaves (including folio 88, D19546–D19547, incorporated in error from another sketchbook, and eighteen blank modern replacements) and paste-downs of white wove paper; page size 113 x 189 mm; watermark ‘A llee | 1819’
Made by William Allee of Hurstbourne Prior Mill, Hampshire
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘MEUSE’ directly on leather spine (D41011)
Numbered 277 as part of the Turner Schedule in 1854 and endorsed by the Executors of the Turner Bequest inside front cover (D41012)
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards top left of front cover, on leather spine cloth
Stamped in black ‘CCXV’ top right of the front cover
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1974
Turner 1775–1851, Royal Academy, London, November 1974–March 1975 (364).
1980
J.M. William Turner: Köln und der Rhein: Aquarelle Zeichnungen Skizzenbücher Stiche, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, October–November 1980 (27).
1991
Turner: The Fourth Decade: Watercolours 1820–1830, Tate Gallery, London, January–May 1991 (43).
1991
Turner’s Rivers of Europe: The Rhine, Meuse and Mosel, Tate Gallery, London, September 1991–January 1992, Musée Communal d’Ixelles, Brussels, February–April (32).
2009
Colour and Line: Turner’s Experiments [fourth hang], Tate Britain, London, December 2009–April 2013 (no catalogue).
References
1825
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, pp.662–5, CCXV 1–90a, as ‘Holland, Meuse, and Cologne Sketch Book’, c.1825.
1974
Andrew Wilton in Martin Butlin, Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.113 under no.364, as August–September 1825.
1974
A. [‘Fred’] G.H. Bachrach, Turner and Rotterdam: 1817 – 1825 – 1841, Netherlands [1974], p.[47], as Autumn 1825.
1975
Gerald Wilkinson, Turner’s Colour Sketches 1820–34, London 1975, p.33, as probably 1826.
1980
Agnes von der Borch and Gerhard Bott, J.M. William Turner: Köln und der Rhein: Aquarelle Zeichnungen Skizzenbücher Stiche, exhibition catalogue, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne 1980, pp.68–9, 72 under no.27, as 1825.
1981
Maurice Guillaud in Guillaud, Nicholas Alfrey, Andrew Wilton and others, Turner en France: aquarelles, peintures, dessins, gravures, carnets de croquis / Turner in France: Watercolours, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Sketchbooks, exhibition catalogue, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris 1981, pp.[169, 171], as 1825.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.142 under no.232, as September 1825.
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner in his Time, London 1987, p.166, as 1826.
1991
Cecilia Powell, Turner’s Rivers of Europe: The Rhine, Meuse and Mosel, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1991, pp.44, 61 note 35, 119 under no.32, as 1825.
1991
Ian Warrell, Turner: The Fourth Decade: Watercolours 1820–1830, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1991, pp.36 under no.20, 48 under no.43, as 1825.
1994
Fred G.H. Bachrach, Turner’s Holland, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1994, pp.19, 25 note 38, as 1825, p.26, as 1826.
1995
Cecilia Powell, Turner in Germany, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, pp.33–4, as 1825.
1997
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Loire, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.17, 206 note 21, as 1825.
1999
Peter Bower, Turner’s Later Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1820–1851, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.40 under no.12.
2006
Andrew Wilton, Turner in his Time, revised ed., London 2006, p.236, as 1825.
This landscape-format sketchbook was used along with the smaller, upright Holland book (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXIV) in what are today the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium (the first and last then forming the United Kingdom of the Netherlands), as well as the adjacent northern coast of France, in the early autumn of 1825.
Together, this and the Holland sketchbook comprise the only direct evidence of the 1825 tour, apart from Turner’s professed decision to embark on it shortly beforehand, as set out in the Introduction to the other book. Since the latter encompasses the entire journey, its immediate circumstances, full itinerary and outcomes, along with previous Turner scholars’ commentaries, are dealt with there in more detail than in the tour’s overall Introduction.
There is a brief sequence of sketches at Dover on the first few leaves as foliated (see under folio 1 recto; D19401); Finberg suggested of the view of the nearby coast from the sea on folio 5 verso (D19410): ‘Perhaps this is on the return journey’.3 Short continuous runs in and around the various Continental cities, some treated in double-page spreads with occasional panoramic extensions onto adjacent pages, follow, but four subjects recur at intervals towards both ends.
Key entries are set out below in the order the cities were visited, with cross-references to the Holland pages under which drawings from other tours and the subjects’ wider significance are discussed. It seems that Maastricht was only visited on this occasion:
Netherlands: Rotterdam: folio 52 verso (D19483); Amsterdam: folio 59 verso (D19497); see also under Tate D18908 and D18999 respectively (Turner Bequest CCXIV 35, 81) in the Holland sketchbook
Germany: Düsseldorf: folio 35 verso (D19464); Cologne: folio 31 verso (D19457); see also under D19112 and D19118 respectively (CCXIV 138, 141)
Belgium: Liège: folio 23 verso (D19442); see also under D19147 (CCXIV 155a)
Netherlands: Maastricht: folio 22 verso (D19440); see also under D19195 (CCXIV 179a)
France: Boulogne: folio 8 verso (D19416); see also under D19319 (CCXIV 241a)
A notional rearrangement of the leaves, bringing the discrete subjects into more coherent groupings, is set out in the technical notes. Also discussed there, the sketchbook’s biggest anomaly (originating with Ruskin and perpetuated in the 1909 Inventory) is folio 88 (D19546–D19547), with previously unrecognised sketches of Edinburgh on both sides, which had gone astray from a similar Scottish sketchbook of 1818. Its presence necessitates the two dates applied to the present book as a whole.
In the Inventory, Finberg dated the Holland book to 1825,5 and this one to approximately the same time, presumably partly on account of the list of banknotes dated between April and August 1825 inside the front cover (D41012).6 However, in an unpublished annotation he suggested that its date was ‘Probably 1826’,7 linking it by implication with other sketchbooks since redated to 1824;8 see the tour’s Introduction for the broader context. In his subsequent biography of the artist, he did not mention it, asserting that the ‘only record we possess of this tour is contained in the “Holland” sketchbook’.9 Gerald Wilkinson thought the present book was ‘probably’ from 1826.10 Having initially assigned it to ‘August–September 1825’,11 Andrew Wilton adopted the later year in his comprehensive 1987 chronology of Turner’s tours,12 along with others which Cecilia Powell established in 1991 as belonging to 182413 (see Alice Rylance-Watson’s ‘Meuse-Mosel, Luxembourg and Northern France 1824’ section in the present catalogue). Wilton subsequently transferred this one to 1825,14 as Powell had conclusively demonstrated that it and Holland were used in combination, and others before and since have concurred.15
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll linked the Cologne sketches here (‘especially’ folio 33 recto; D19460) and in the Holland sketchbook to ‘Turner’s visit in September 1825’16 in relation to the major painting Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet Boat. Evening, exhibited at the Royal Academy the following year (Frick Collection, New York),17 although the viewpoints in the painting and D19460 are quite different; its more direct sources are noted under Tate D19122 (Turner Bequest CCXIV 143) in the Holland book. As discussed in the latter’s Introduction, Cologne had perhaps not been specified by the existing patron who eventually acquired the painting, which was possibly not a direct commission, so Turner may have been surveying potential alternatives in commensurate detail, but did not go on to develop any other finished compositions.
Step 1
Identify the landscape that needs to be sketched. In this example, the image below will be used.
The view south of Mappleton
Step 2
Write a title that will help to locate the sketch, eg ‘Site One’. Divide your page into 4 using feint lines to help get the scale of the picture right.
Step 2 of Creating a Field Sketch
Step 3
Draw in the skyline and foreground in your field of view.
Step 3 of Creating a Field Sketch
Is South Milton Sands dog-friendly?
Yes! South Milton Sands is an all year-round dog-friendly beach. Be sure to bring along your four-legged family member for a romp in the sand and a splash about in the water.
Similar beaches
Other unspoilt South Devon beaches with facilities for watersports include Salcombe’s South Sands and Blackpool Sands near Dartmouth.
For comprehensive information about South Devon’s best beaches, see our South Devon Beach Bible.
Places to stay near South Milton Sands
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Milton Cottage (sleeps 6)
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