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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North of England 1797-1801 > North of England Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Barnard Castle: Looking Upstream from the Bed of the River Tees 1797

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Barnard Castle: Looking Upstream from the Bed of the River Tees’ 1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Recto:
Barnard Castle: Looking Upstream from the Bed of the River Tees 1797
D00935
Turner Bequest XXXIV 29
Pencil on white wove paper, 210 x 270 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘29’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XXXIV 29’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject is drawn with the page turned horizontally. Another view of the castle and bridge, taken from the opposite direction looking upstream, is on folio 31 recto (D00936; Turner Bequest XXXIV 30). Turner made a watercolour of Barnard Castle as one of the series for the Picturesque Beauties of England and Wales in about 1825 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven);1 it is partly derived from this drawing. As David Hill notes, the chapel in the centre of the bridge had been demolished by the time he returned to Barnard Castle to draw it again in 1816 and 1817, but when he made the England and Wales watercolour he relied on this earlier record and retained the chapel. These studies occur in the Yorkshire 2 sketchbook (Tate D11207, D11208; Turner Bequest CXLV 103, 103a). He returned to Barnard Castle in 1831 on his way to Scotland to work on illustrations to Sir Walter Scott; there are studies of the place in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border sketchbook (Tate D25823–D25827; Turner Bequest CCLXVI 32–34).
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.392 no.793, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
January 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Barnard Castle: Looking Upstream from the Bed of the River Tees 1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-barnard-castle-looking-upstream-from-the-bed-of-the-river-r1150091, accessed 08 February 2025.