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Artwork
Joseph Mallord William Turner Bemerside Hall 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 81 Recto:
Bemerside Hall 1831
D26074
Turner Bequest CCLXVII 83
Turner Bequest CCLXVII 83
Pencil on off-white wove writing paper, 113 x 185 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner [unidentified] top right
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘83’ bottom left inverted and ‘271’ top left inverted
Stamped in black ‘CCLXVII – 83’ top left inverted
Inscribed in pencil by Turner [unidentified] top right
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘83’ bottom left inverted and ‘271’ top left inverted
Stamped in black ‘CCLXVII – 83’ top left inverted
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.860, CCLXVII 83, as ‘Road through wood.’ [sic].
1910
Alexander J. Finberg, Turner’s Sketches and Drawings, London 1910, reproduced between pp.118–119 pl.LXXI as ‘Bemerside Tower’.
1972
Gerald E. Finley, ‘J.M.W. Turner and Sir Walter Scott: Iconography of a Tour’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol.35, 1972, reproduced between pp.368–9 as pl.55c, pp.369, 381 note 131.
1978
Agnes von der Borch, Studien zu Joseph Mallord William Turners Rheinreisen (1817–1844) (Ph.D thesis, Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, Bonn 1972), Bonn 1978, pp.82, 160 note 218.
1980
Gerald Finley, Landscapes of Memory: Turner as Illustrator to Scott, London 1980, p.112, reproduced p.114 pl.44 as ‘Bemerside Tower’.
1993
Dr Jan Piggott, Turner’s Vignettes, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1993, p.88.
This sketch is of Bemerside (a sixteenth-century peel tower converted in the eighteenth century to a manor house) is the only drawing that Turner made of the house, and formed the basis for his watercolour design to illustrate volume 5 of Sir Walter Scott’s Poetical Works: Bemerside Tower circa 1832 (private collection).1 Turner visited Bemerside on 6 August 1831 on his return journey from Smailholm to Abbotsford where he was staying with Sir Walter Scott. John Gilbert Lockhart’s account of the day, repeated by Walter Thornbury, has been shown to be inaccurate by the diary of Robert Cadell who was also among the visiting party.2
Turner’s view is from the east of the house and includes a carefully rendered Spanish chestnut tree to the left of the building with Scott’s carriage parked along the front. At the top left of the page Turner has carefully recorded a detail of one of the four corner turrets. To its right, on folio 80 verso (D26073; CCLXVII 82a), he has drawn the peculiar sundial that stood to the left of the house and which he included in the foreground of his design for Scott. That vignette illustration was closely based on this sketch. The only changes were to compress the composition slightly to fit it into the vignette format, and to push the house back to include the sundial and figures in the foreground.
The sketch continues very slightly onto folio 80 verso, where trees and bushes to the right of the house are depicted.
Thomas Ardill
September 2009
How to cite
Thomas Ardill, ‘Bemerside Hall 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www