Joseph Mallord William Turner Buckfast Abbey and the Dart Valley 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Recto:
Buckfast Abbey and the Dart Valley 1814
D09855
Turner Bequest CXXXIV 57
Turner Bequest CXXXIV 57
Pencil on white wove paper with gilt edges, 179 x 254 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘57’ bottom right (very faint)
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXIV – 57’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘57’ bottom right (very faint)
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXIV – 57’ bottom right
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.I, p.382, CXXXIV 57 (as ‘River with hills on either side; in mid-distance the castellated building sketched on pp.49, 47, and 46’ noted under the latter, folio 25 recto (D09842; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 46) as ‘castle (?)’).
1979
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Picturesque Views in England and Wales 1825–1838, London 1979, p.156.
Turner’s viewpoint is the hillside east of Holy Trinity Church, Buckfastleigh, looking north up the River Dart to Buckfast and the east side of Dartmoor beyond. Eric Shanes has identified this sketch as the basis for the watercolour Buckfastleigh Abbey, Devonshire of about 1826 (Exeter City Museums and Art Gallery),1 engraved in 1828 for the series Picturesque Views in England and Wales.2
Remains of the ruined medieval Cistercian abbey – known as Buckfast, rather than Buckfastleigh – had by this time been partly incorporated into Samuel Berry’s castellated late eighteenth-century Gothic mansion, seen here just to the right of centre. In turn this was integrated with the cloisters on the south-west side of a substantial new neo-Gothic Benedictine abbey church in the early twentieth century,3 while the open spaces recorded by Turner to the left of the river are now largely occupied by industrial buildings.
Shanes notes: ‘Turner probably visited the house in 1814, on a third West Country tour we unfortunately know little about.’4 For the likely dating of this sketchbook, see the Introduction; and for further views around Buckfastleigh and Buckfast Abbey see under folio 22 recto (D09844; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 48).
Verso:
Blank
Matthew Imms
July 2014
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘Buckfast Abbey and the Dart Valley 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www