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 > Tweed and Lakes Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Coniston: Looking up Church Beck to Wetherlam 1797

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coniston: Looking up Church Beck to Wetherlam’ 1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 72 Recto:
Coniston: Looking up Church Beck to Wetherlam 1797
D01059
Turner Bequest XXXV 57
Pencil on white wove paper, 370 x 274 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Old Man’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXXV 57’ bottom right
Church Beck flows from the Coniston Fells and Levers Water through the village of Coniston into Coniston Water near the head of the lake. Turner’s view is taken from above the village, looking towards Great How Crags and Wetherlam. The lower slopes of Coniston Old Man flank the view on the left. The Church Beck Falls and Coppermines Valley are in the foreground.
An oil painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798, Morning amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland (Tate N00461)1 was based on this drawing. With its burst of light and plunging vertical composition it is, like the painting of Buttermere Lake, with part of Cromackwater, Cumberland, a Shower (Tate N00460)2 based on folio 40 recto (D01086; Turner Bequest XXXV 84), a testimony to the impact on Turner of Sublime landscape, and one of the principal results of this visit to the Lakes. A watercolour of a mountain stream, supposedly at Coniston and perhaps Church Beck is in a private collection.3
1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.3–4 no.5, pl.6 (colour).
2
Ibid., p.5 no.7, pl.5 (colour).
3
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.325 no.230, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed by A.J. Finberg in pencil ‘141.57’.

Andrew Wilton
August 2010

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Coniston: Looking up Church Beck to Wetherlam 1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2010, 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-coniston-looking-up-church-beck-to-wetherlam-r1150236, accessed 30 June 2024.