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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Midlands 1830 > Birmingham and Coventry Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Coventry from the South 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coventry from the South’ 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Verso:
Coventry from the South 1830
D22340
Turner Bequest CCXL 11a
Pencil on white wove paper, 68 x 110 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Eric Shanes confirmed Finberg’s tentative identification of the subject as Coventry,1 in general relation to Turner’s watercolour Coventry of about 1832 (British Museum, London),2 engraved in 1833 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impression: T06105). From left to right to the north are the spires of Holy Trinity Church, St Michael’s Cathedral, and (the nearest from this viewpoint) Christchurch, seen from the vicinity of Warwick Road. An isolated study of the latter spire appears on folio 12 recto opposite (D22341), while the other two are shown in detail on folio 15 verso (D22348).
There is also a similar view of the city from a little further east in the contemporary Kenilworth sketchbook (Tate D22051, D22052; Turner Bequest Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 40a–41). For other Coventry views, see under folio 9 verso (D22336).

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Shanes 1979, p.156.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.399 no.849, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Coventry from the South 1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-coventry-from-the-south-r1148490, accessed 22 November 2024.