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

The drawing is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. In discussing a ‘colour beginning’ of Garrick’s Villa at Hampton (Tate D25145; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 23) based on pencil drawings elsewhere in this sketchbook (see under folio 21 verso; D20764; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 20), Ian Warrell has observed that the present scene and another watercolour on folio 37 recto (D20787; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 35) are ‘similar ... in their treatment of Thames scenery under cloudy summer skies’.1

There are no identifiable landmarks here, and the scene may be at least in part improvised, but it has a feeling of the rural Thames as Turner often depicted it through much of his career.2 See under folio 2 verso (D20736) for identified views along the river in the vicinity of Hampton Court.

Technical notes:

This is the first of several pages where the monochrome grey wash common to all the rectos has been worked in watercolour with occasional scratching out; in this instance there is extensive scratching out to expose the white paper and render bright cloud, and sparkling reflections on the water in the distance. See also folios 27 recto and 28 recto (D20774, D20776), and folios 29 recto, 34 recto, 37 recto and 39 recto (D20803, D20783, D20787, D20791; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 43, 32, 35, 37). Folio 33 verso (D20781; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 31) is a watercolour in a similar mode, but made on the unwashed white face of the leaf.

The verso (D20742) shows signs of the leaf being removed and mounted at some stage, although its exhibition history if any is unrecorded.