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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Likely English, Scottish or Welsh ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant Mountains, Perhaps in the Lake District c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant Mountains, Perhaps in the Lake District’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Distant Mountains, Perhaps in the Lake District c.1820–40
D25388
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 265
Gouache and watercolour on white wove paper, 174 x 247 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘265’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 265’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view of high hills or mountains receding in successively paler washes to the horizon is one of a number apparently ‘unconnected with any finished work’, as Andrew Wilton has noted,1 although Eric Shanes has tentatively suggested a ‘Lake District’ subject.2 Turner had first visited Cumbia (then largely Cumberland and Westmorland) on his tour of the North of England in 1797, as extensively documented in his North of England and Tweed and Lakes sketchbooks (Tate; Turner Bequest XXXIV, XXXV), returning in 1809, 1816 and 1831.
Compare the gradated backgrounds of the watercolour Windermere of 1821 (Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal),3 and another of about 1835 (Manchester Art Gallery),4 engraved in 1837 as Winander-Mere, Westmoreland (sic) for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impression: T05102).
Within the present section, Tate D25421 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 298) may also be a Lake District subject.
1
Wilton 1980, p.[173] note 1.
2
See Shanes 1997, p.98.
3
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.363 no.555.
4
Ibid., p.402 no.874, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank; laid down.

Matthew Imms
August 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Distant Mountains, Perhaps in the Lake District c.1820–40 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-distant-mountains-perhaps-in-the-lake-district-r1184459, accessed 08 May 2024.