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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Colour Studies of the Sun, Skies and ... > Colour Studies of Clear or Hazy Skies > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Clear Sky above a Landscape c.1816-20

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Clear Sky above a Landscape’ c.1816-20
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Clear Sky above a Landscape c.1816–20
D40303
Turner Bequest CXCVI P2
Watercolour on white wove paper, 335 x 423 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman | 1816’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘CXCVI P2’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXCVI – P 2’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For a discussion of this and three similar sheets see under Tate D17180 (Turner Bequest CXCVI P1).
Technical notes:
There is a vertical fold down the centre. Dark, intermittent marks in straight lines parallel to the top and bottom edges are possibly from a former mount. Finberg gives the single Turner Bequest number CXCVI ‘P’ to an entry for ‘Three colour beginnings’ comprising this sheet, Tate D17180 and D40304 (subsequently numbered separately as CXCVI P1, P2 and P3), along with a single set of Imperial dimensions, ‘13 x 17 ½’ inches, which corresponds to each of them individually;1 their comparatively regular edges and current wide mounts make it difficult to ascertain whether they were or had been physically continuous in some way.
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.600.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil by John Ruskin ‘AB 94 P | O’ top left, upside down; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CXCVI – P 2’ bottom left.

Matthew Imms
March 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Clear Sky above a Landscape c.1816–20 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-clear-sky-above-a-landscape-r1183186, accessed 22 November 2024.