J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Work for Earls Egremont and Lonsdale ... > Cockermouth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Derwent from Lord Egremont's Room, Cockermouth Castle 1809

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Derwent from Lord Egremont's Room, Cockermouth Castle’ 1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 22 Recto:
The River Derwent from Lord Egremont's Room, Cockermouth Castle 1809
D07562
Turner Bequest CX 22
Pencil on white laid paper, 116 x 185 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘from Ld. Egremont’s room Cockermouth’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘22’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CX 22’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For Cockermouth Castle and Turner’s views in this sketchbook see Introduction. This view is taken from a first floor window in the ‘Wyndham Rooms’, built 1802–5 inside the north curtain wall of the castle. It is not certain which of the upstairs rooms was Lord Egremont’s, but the outlook from the north-facing bedrooms corresponds closely to Turner’s drawing. The river is not the Cocker, as stated by Finberg, but the Derwent, with a dam and stepping stones near the bend in the river and the ‘Lands’ on the right bank. This is the best side for fishing, as Turner will have known as a keen fisherman himself. Indeed he shows a jetty and a figure immediately below the castle mound. A sketch in the Lowther sketchbook (Tate D07941; Turner Bequest CXIII 56) inscribed ‘Lord Egremont’ shows a man fishing from probably the same jetty, looking back towards the castle mound.
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David Blayney Brown
August 2009

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The River Derwent from Lord Egremont's Room, Cockermouth Castle 1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-river-derwent-from-lord-egremonts-room-cockermouth-r1135678, accessed 18 May 2024.