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

This sketch continues for the full width of folio 15 recto (D40764) opposite. The scene remains unidentified but is presumably in County Durham or Northumberland, recorded elsewhere in this sketchbook, or possibly on the way to or near Farnley Hall, Walter Fawkes’s home in North Yorkshire, where Turner came to rest at the end of his travels (see the introduction to the tour). The drawing on folio 3 recto (D12312) shows similar country and was perhaps made nearby.

The sketchbook has been tightly rebound, disrupting the appearance of the buildings in the foreground and on the distant hillside, which in both cases run into and across the gutter to the opposite page. The buildings near the skyline were clearly of interest to Turner, as (presumably on the same occasion) he devoted a page of his Durham, North Shore sketchbook to studies of the long building, apparently a farmhouse, crossing the gutter here, the bridge to its left and the low, chapel-like building to its right (Tate D12445; Turner Bequest CLVII 92). There seem to be no matches for any of these structures among extensive Durham and Northumberland County Councils’ photographic archives of local listed buildings and other sites,1 although the farmhouse appears characteristic of the area.

The immediate context of this subject, between sketches of Hylton Castle, Northumberland on folio 13 recto (D12276; CLVI 10) and Bishop Auckland Castle, County Durham on folio 15 verso (D12294; CLVI 20) seems to offer no clues, while the complementary Durham, North Shore sketch mentioned above falls between unrelated studies of Prudhoe Castle, Northumberland.

Relative to the general sequence of this sketchbook and the foliation used here, the present page is bound as the verso of the leaf, and according to Finberg’s usual practice would have been numbered ‘29a’. However, there appears to have been particular confusion as to the sequence of pages, some or all of which may have been loose in 1909 (see the introduction to the sketchbook).

Technical notes:

Just under half the leaf is missing, the outer part having been trimmed quite neatly, but without the aid of a straight edge, from the original full width of 328 mm. The stamps and inscriptions on both sides (as transcribed above and below) are all near the outer corners, but there is no clue as to whether it was Turner or someone later (most likely John Ruskin) who mutilated the sheet. It may have been trimmed for potential mounting and display with the rest of the composition on folio 15 recto opposite (D40764) when the leaves were removed from the book. What appears to be Ruskin’s ink number ‘29’ may have been written over in pencil, possibly with the number ‘12’ but both are very difficult to make out.

When viewed by turning over straight from the present drawing when correctly orientated, the otherwise blank recto of the leaf is inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘556. B’ and in blue ink ‘Raby Book’ at the bottom left, and in pencil in a later hand ‘19, a’ at the top left.