A contemporary of the more famous artist Joseph Mallord William Turner, William Turner of Oxford specialized in landscapes depicting Oxfordshire and made sketching tours throughout England and into the Highlands of Scotland. He came to prominence in the first decade of the nineteenth century and championed the medium of watercolor, exhibiting regularly until his death in 1862. His earliest artistic training was from William Delamotte in Oxford; subsequently, he was a pupil of and possibly apprentice to John Varley in London about 1804.1 He first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1807 and became a member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours the following year. At Turner’s election to the group, Joseph Farington recorded that “Varley spoke violently of the merit of a young man who has been His pupil in learning to draw in water colour. . . . His name Turner.”2 Returning to Oxford, probably about 1811, Turner became a successful drawing master. The artist continued to exhibit hundreds of watercolors at the Society of Painters in Water Colours during his artistic career, and their titles and subjects reflect tours he had made of the Lake District, Briston, Wales, Salisbury Plain, North Devon, Cornwall, Sussex, Scotland, and his native Oxfordshire.
In this watercolor, Turner’s panoramic vista overlooks the small fishing village of Clovelly, built against the wooded sea cliffs, and its harbor with boats in rough waters. The artist aggrandized the large stone seawall, reinforced in the sixteenth century, which allowed safe haven for ships along this expanse of the Devon coast. The human figures seem incidental. Turner exhibited coastal views of this area in the 1820s and 1830s. At the Society of Painters in Water Colours, he displayed a watercolor numbered 189 and called On the Coast near Clovelly, Devon in 1827, and another, Clovelly, North Devon, number 57, in 1833.3 Timothy Wilcox indicates that Turner made reduced variants, such as the one depicting more of the village of Clovelly, seen from the edge of the sea (now in the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California). The present watercolor of similar dimensions and appearance perhaps represents another variant, but it replaces the marooned boat seen in the Huntington work with children beachcombing.
4 —Dena M. Woodall
Notes
1. See Timothy Wilcox, “Turner, William [Turner of Oxford],” Grove Art Online, 2003, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T086675.
2. See Joseph Farington, The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. 9, January 1808–June 1809, ed. Kathryn Cave (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982), 3,209, January 27, 1808.
3. No. 57 is probably the watercolor at Yale. See William Turner of Oxford, Clovelly, North Devon, no date, watercolor, pen, and brown ink, and graphite with scraping out on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection [B1977.14.6302].
4. See William Turner of Oxford, no date, watercolor over graphite on paper, Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, Gilbert Davis Collection [59.55.1290]. See Timothy Wilcox and Christopher Titterington, William Turner of Oxford (1789–1862), exh. cat. (London: Bankside Gallery; Woodstock, UK: Oxfordshire Museum, 1984), 54–55, cat. 49. Another portrayal of Clovelly is William Tombleson, after Thomas Allom, published by Fisher, Son & Co., London, Clovelly, North Devon, from the series Devonshire Illustrated, 1830, etching and engraving on paper, the British Museum [1946,0710.61].
Figures on the Beach at Clovelly, North Devon
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ProvenanceChristie’s London, Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings & Watercolors Day Sale, December 9, 2009, lot 224 (as Figures on a Beach near the Harbour Wall, Clovelly, Devon); private collection, [Andrew Wyld, Londonstock number VH704, as of 2009–2012]; private collection, England, 2012–2014; [Martyn Gregory, London, 2014–2015]; purchased by the MFAH, 2015.