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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Calais Pier Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner An Old Man and Three Other Figures Hurrying to the Right c.1799-1805

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘An Old Man and Three Other Figures Hurrying to the Right’ c.1799-1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Recto:
An Old Man and Three Other Figures Hurrying to the Right c.1799–1805
D04928
Turner Bequest LXXXI 27
Black and white chalks and ink on blue laid paper, 271 x 436 mm
Watermark ‘1794’
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–27’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. As Finberg suggested,1 this is probably a sketch of Lot and his daughters fleeing from Sodom, for the Biblical painting The Destruction of Sodom, possibly exhibited at Turner’s gallery in 1805 (Tate N00474).2 Related studies are on folios 15 recto and verso, (possibly) folios 56 verso–57 recto, and 80 verso (D04930, D04931, D05012–D05013, D05060; Turner Bequest LXXXI 29, 30, 110–111, 158); see also under folio 3 recto (D04906; Turner Bequest LXXXI 5).
1
See Finberg 1909, I, p.214.
2
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.44 no.56, pl.66.
Technical notes:
About half the area of the leaf has been torn away at the left, and made good with similar modern paper.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘An Old Man and Three Other Figures Hurrying to the Right c.1799–1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-an-old-man-and-three-other-figures-hurrying-to-the-right-r1178132, accessed 21 November 2024.