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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Brighton and Copies from Wilson 1796-7 > Wilson Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Four Figures Seated round a Camp Fire 1796-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Four Figures Seated round a Camp Fire’ 1796-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Recto:
Four Figures Seated round a Camp Fire 1796–7
D01138
Turner Bequest XXXVII 21
Pencil, watercolour and gouache on blue laid wrapping paper prepared with a red-brown wash, 93 x 113 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXXVII – 21’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Miklos Rajnai1 relates this study, made with the page turned horizontally, to a small oil painting of a gypsy encampment (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).2 That and a companion picture3 have been associated with an entry in the artist Joseph Farington’s diary for 30 October 1799: ‘Turner called. Has been in Kent painting from Beech Trees.’4 There seems little likelihood that the study catalogued here dates from so late in the decade, and there is no specific visual similarity to confirm a connection.

Andrew Wilton
September 2012

1
Rajnai 1983, p.59.
2
Butlin and Joll 1984, p.27 no.35a, pl.40 (colour).
3
Ibid., p.27 no.35b, pl.41 (colour).
4
Quoted ibid., p.26.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Four Figures Seated round a Camp Fire 1796–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-four-figures-seated-round-a-camp-fire-r1149830, accessed 20 May 2024.