Joseph Mallord William Turner A Church Spire, Possibly at Petworth, Grantham or Newark c.1828-30
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
A Church Spire, Possibly at Petworth, Grantham or Newark
c.1828-30
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Church Spire, Possibly at Petworth, Grantham or Newark c.1828–30
D25427
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 304
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 304
Watercolour on white wove paper, 308 x 487 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[... ?Album]’ bottom right, ascending vertically
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 304’ bottom right
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[... ?Album]’ bottom right, ascending vertically
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 304’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1904
National Gallery, London, various dates to at least 1904 (316, as ‘A Church Tower’).
1936
Watercolours from the Turner Bequest [Loan Series G], Empire Loan Collections Society, National Gallery, Cape Town, May 1936–June 1937 (no catalogue but frame number 26, as ‘A Church Spire’).
1963
J.M.W. Turner, Bridgestone Gallery, Tokyo, September–October 1963, Fine Arts Museum, Osaka, November 1963 (2, reproduced, as ‘A church spire’).
1964
Turner 1775–1851: Watercolours from the British Museum, London, Presented in Association with the British Council, City Hall Art Gallery, Hong Kong, January 1964 (2, as ‘A church spire’).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (108, reproduced, as ‘A church spire’, ?c.1826).
1976
J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Akvareller og Tegninger fra British Museum, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, February–May 1976 (65, as ‘A Church Spire’, ?c.1826).
1976
William Turner und die Landschaft seiner Zeit, Hamburger Kunsthalle, May–July 1976 (87, reproduced in colour, as ‘Kirchturm’).
2001
William Turner: Licht und Farbe, Museum Folkwang, Essen, September 2001–January 2002, Kunsthaus Zürich, February–May 2002 (149, reproduced in colour, as ‘Newark Church’, c.1830).
2004
Turner and Williamson / In the Haze: Watercolours by Turner and Williamson, Clore Gallery, Tate Britain, January–May 2004, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, June–August 2004 (no catalogue, as ‘A Church Spire, possibly Petworth, Sussex’).
References
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn eds., Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, p.624 no.316, as ‘A Church Tower (colour)’.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.837, CCLXIII 304 (as ‘A church tower. (? Grantham.)’. c.1820–30).
1976
Werner Hofmann in Hofmann, Andrew Wilton, Siegmar Hosten and others, William Turner und die Landschaft seiner Zeit, exhibition catalogue, Hamburger Kunsthalle 1976, p.140 no.87, reproduced (as ‘Kirchturm’. ?c.1826, Farbtafel IX colour).
1979
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.398 under no.836.
1987
[Andrew Wilton], The Turner Collection in the Clore Gallery: An Illustrated Guide: Published to Celebrate the Opening of the Gallery by Her Majesty The Queen, 1 April 1987, London 1987, p.118, as ‘A church spire’. c.1828, reproduced in colour p.119 (Wilton 1987a).
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolours in the Clore Gallery, London 1987, p.88 no.37, reproduced in colour, as ‘Colour study: a church spire’. c.1828 (Wilton 1987b).
1989
Ian Warrell, ‘Appendix II: Petworth’s Architectural Landscape’, in Martin Butlin, Mollie Luther and Ian Warrell, Turner at Petworth: Painter and Patron, London 1989, p.133, fig.137 as ?Petworth Church (c.1828–30).
1989
Jeremy Robinson, The Light Eternal: A Study of J.M.W. Turner, Kidderminster 1989, p.48.
1997
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.27, 94, 96, 106: (Appendix I under ‘Chichester Canal’, p.94 under ‘Churches’, as ‘?St Wulfram’s Church, Grantham’), (p.96 under ‘England and Wales Series’, as ‘?Sketch for a view of St Wulfram’s Church, Grantham, Lincolnshire’), (p.106 Appendix II, as ‘Sketch: Chichester Canal/St Wulfram’s Church, Grantham, Lincolnshire’).
2001
Andrew Wilton in Wilton, Inge Bodesohn-Vogel and Helena Robinson, William Turner: Licht und Farbe, exhibition catalogue, Museum Folkwang, Essen 2001, p.346 no.149, reproduced (as ‘Newark Church’. c.1830).
This colour study of a slender spire against a wide blue sky is of the type Turner made in preparation for the watercolour compositions of his Picturesque Views in England and Wales. Cook and Wedderburn record John Ruskin’s MS note of 1880 concerning the identification of the view: ‘Grantham–nearly sure’1 – a reference to St Wulfram’ Church, Grantham, Lincolnshire, which Turner had drawn in 1797 in the North of England sketchbook (Tate D00995; Turner Bequest XXXIV 84), and there is a watercolour of a different aspect, the North-East View of Grantham Church, Lincolnshire, of a little earlier (its engraving being dated 1 March 1797), based on a sketch by R.B. Schnebbelie (Yale Centre for British Art, New Haven).2 The profile of the tower and spire is comparable and Finberg tentatively offered the same identification.
Werner Hofmann’s suggestion that the present work relates to the watercolour Salisbury, from the South, c.1828 (Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum),3 engraved in 1830 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impression: T04586),4 has been dismissed by Andrew Wilton as ‘the two buildings seem wholly different both in shape and proportion’.5 Wilton subsequently proposed ‘Grantham or Newark’ as possible subjects.6 St Mary Magdalene’s Church, Newark, Nottinghamshire, was the subject of a watercolour of about 1794 (private collection);7 there is also a 1794 pencil sketch showing the spire in the distance (Tate D00360; Tuner Bequest XXII G).
In relation to England and Wales compositions, Eric Shanes has given the Grantham church8 and Chichester Cathedral, West Sussex,9 as potential subjects. Chichester seems unlikely, as the section of the tower rising above the high roofline at its crossing forms a relatively shallow cube compared with the triple cube proportion of the tower in the present study. For a more likely Chichester ‘colour beginning’, see Tate D25204 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 82).
Ian Warrell makes a persuasive case for the spire being that of St Mary’s Church, Petworth, West Sussex, adjacent to Petworth House, the home of Turner’s patron Lord Egremont. he compares it with an 1827 pencil sketch, looking west from rolling countryside to the church, with its newly built steeple, beside the house on the horizon, in the Petworth sketchbook (Tate D22577; Turner Bequest CCXLIII 1), and a gouache on blue paper study of a similar view from the same year (Tate D22667; Turner Bequest CCXLIV 5), with ‘a cluster of peaks to the right resembling [Petworth House’s] chimneys’, possibly echoed in the strokes at the centre of the skyline of the present work10 (the spire has since been taken down).
With Petworth seemingly the most likely subject, Warrell’s dating of c.1828–30 has been followed here. Whatever the subject, Jeremy Robinson has considered the ‘church and landscape ... as reflectors of light merely, as atmospheric effects’.11
See also the Introductions to the present subsection of tentatively identified but unrealised subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
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Matthew Imms
March 2013
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘A Church Spire, Possibly at Petworth, Grantham or Newark c.1828–30 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www