Joseph Mallord William Turner Criccieth Castle c.1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Criccieth Castle c.1836
D25174
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 52
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 52
Pencil, watercolour and gouache on white wove paper, 344 x 489 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘52’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 52’ bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘52’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 52’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1989
Summer Miscellany: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery, London, July–September 1989 (no catalogue, as ‘Castle on a rocky Coast’).
1997
Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, Tate Gallery, London, February–June 1997, Southampton City Art Gallery, June–September 1997, reproduced in colour, as ‘Compositional, Colour and Underpainting Study for Crickieth Castle, North Wales?’, ?1836).
2007
Colour and Line: Turner’s Experiments, Tate Britain, London, April–November 2007 (no catalogue, as ‘?Compositional, Colour and Underpainting Study for “Crickieth Castle, North Wales”’).
2013
Turner from the Tate: The Making of a Master, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, February–May 2013, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, June–September 2013 (80, reproduced in colour, as ‘Study for Bamburgh Castle; also linked with the watercolour of “Crickieth Castle, North Wales”’, ?1836).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.818, CCLXIII 52, as ‘Castle on rocky coast’. c.1820–30.
1992
Joyce H. Townsend, ‘Turner Research Project: Information on Painting Materials via Standard Imaging Techniques’, Journal of Photographic Science, vol.40, 1992, p.64.
1997
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.21, 45 no.18, reproduced in colour, as ‘Compositional, Colour and Underpainting Study for Crickieth Castle, North Wales?’. ?1836, pp.94, 95, 101, 104 (p.94 Appendix I under ‘Criccieth Castle’, p.95 under ‘England and Wales Series’, as ‘Study for Crickieth Castle, North Wales?’. c.1836, p.101 under ‘Sea Sketches and Studies’, p.104 Appendix II, as ‘Study: Criccieth Castle, North Wales?’).
2009
Ian Warrell in Fan Di’an, Warrell, Matthew Imms and others, Turner from the Tate Collection, exhibition catalogue, National Art Museum of China, Beijing 2009, p.176, as a Bamburgh Castle subject.
2013
Ian Warrell (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: The Making of a Master, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide 2013, p.174 no.80, reproduced in colour, p.250 no.80, as ‘Study for Bamburgh Castle (also linked with the watercolour of “Crickieth Castle, North Wales”)’. ?1836.
This is one of four colour studies linked by Eric Shanes with varying degrees of certainty to the watercolour of about 1836 showing the castle at Criccieth, near Porthmadog, Gwynedd, on its headland looking overlooking Tremadog Bay to the south (British Museum, London),1 engraved as Crickieth [sic] Castle, North Wales in 1837 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T04610, T06126). The others are Tate D25161, D25170 and D25293 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 39, 48, 171). Of three pencil sketches of Criccieth in the 1798 North Wales sketchbook (Tate D01378–D01380; Turner Bequest XXXIX 23, 24, 25), D01379 is closest to the finished watercolour, though with considerable differences.
In this ‘basic colour structure’,2 the castle appears to be outlined at the summit of a bright hill to the right, balanced by a dark pyramid of cloud to the left. In the England and Wales watercolour, the pale castle is at the apex of a dark hill in the left, with a bright area of distant hills and sky to the right. Nevertheless, Shanes’s suggestion is persuasive, as the overall form of dark and light triangles above a bright strip (the beach), as well as the general colour masses and some specific cloud shapes, can be read as corresponding quite closely.3
Ian Warrell has suggested the present work as a study for the ambitious watercolour Bamborough Castle (private collection),4 exhibited at the Graphic Society, London, in 1837.5 There are four considerably larger ‘colour beginnings’ linked to it elsewhere in the present catalogue (Tate D25456, D25457, D25506, D36321; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 333, 334, 382, CCCLXV 30), but the forms here, while comparable with those of the last of the four in particular, seem more likely to relate to the Criccieth design, which is on a sheet of similar dimensions.
See also Tate D25176 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 54), which Finberg thought possibly showed Criccieth, but which may be of Conway Castle, the introductions to the present subsection of identified subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
Verso:
Blank (not examined out of frame).
Blank (not examined out of frame).
Matthew Imms
March 2013
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘Criccieth Castle c.1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www