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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Margate, London and Surrey c.1829-45 > Colnaghi's Account Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Buildings including a ?Church Tower among Trees, Perhaps by a River c.1829-30

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Buildings including a ?Church Tower among Trees, Perhaps by a River’ c.1829-30
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 15 Recto:
Buildings including a ?Church Tower among Trees, Perhaps by a River c.1829–30
D22573
Turner Bequest CCXLII 15
Pencil on white laid paper, 75 x 129 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘15’ top right, ascending vertically (now very faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCXLII – 15’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, this slight sketch was described by Finberg as a ‘River scene’.1 Between the trees, a figure or figures at the centre may be in a small boat, beyond which is the perfunctory outline of a tower, perhaps that of a church. Lower buildings are indicated on the left, but the location is unidentified. It may be somewhere near Croydon, or elsewhere in Surrey; see the verso and folio 16 recto (D22574, D22575).

Matthew Imms
May 2014

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.742.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Buildings including a ?Church Tower among Trees, Perhaps by a River c.1829–30 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-buildings-including-a-church-tower-among-trees-perhaps-by-a-r1148349, accessed 20 May 2024.