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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Colour Studies of the Sun, Skies and ... > Colour Studies of Clouds, Storms and a ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Clouds and Rain above a Landscape c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Clouds and Rain above a Landscape’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Clouds and Rain above a Landscape c.1820–40
D25262
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 140
Watercolour on white wove paper, 281 x 436 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman | 1815’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘140’ bottom right (faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 140’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner evokes blustery rain clouds over a featureless, vaguely undulating landscape. Eric Shanes has suggested Yorkshire as a possible setting, without further comment other than noting the sheet’s 1815 watermark,1 possibly in relation to Turner’s 1816 tour including that county, addressed by David Hills ‘Tour of Yorkshire 1816’ section in the present catalogue, when the weather was notoriously wet. There are a number of ‘colour beginnings’ which establish more specific landscape settings in relation to that tour, such as Tate D25255 and D25492 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 133, 369).
1
See Shanes 1997, p.103.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘43’ centre right, upside down; inscribed by John Ruskin in pencil ‘AB 150 P | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII. 140’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXIII – 140’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
March 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Clouds and Rain above a Landscape c.1820–40 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-clouds-and-rain-above-a-landscape-r1183153, accessed 05 July 2024.