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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > European River and Lowland Scenes > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Gothic Church with a Rose Window and Tall Trees c.1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Gothic Church with a Rose Window and Tall Trees’ c.1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Gothic Church with a Rose Window and Tall Trees c.1824
D20510
Turner Bequest CCXXIV 199v
Chalk and pencil on blue wove paper, 280 x 193 mm
Inscribed in purple ink ‘199’ top right, ascending vertically
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch appears on the verso of D20509 (CCXXIV 199). The wall of a Gothic church is shown with a rose window on a pedimented façade. It is unclear, however, whether there are two round windows or whether one is a pentimento, as may be suggested by the extempore character of the sketch. Two tall trees tower over the building to the right. A more distant view of the same church is depicted in D20509, and an even more distant one in D20508 (CCXXIV 198), on the other half of this folded sheet.
For the grouping and dating of these works, see the section Introduction.
Technical notes:
This sketch is on the same sheet as D20508 (CCXXIV 198). The two halves are separated by a faint line of a fold that runs down the centre of the sheet; the half with this sketch on it measures 140 x 193mm.

Ben Pollitt
August 2019

How to cite

Ben Pollitt, ‘Gothic Church with a Rose Window and Tall Trees c.1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-gothic-church-with-a-rose-window-and-tall-trees-r1202148, accessed 09 May 2024.