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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Architectural and Other Subjects c.1797 ... > Academical Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant View of Caernarvon Castle, with the Moon among Clouds c.1798-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of Caernarvon Castle, with the Moon among Clouds’ c.1798-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 44 Verso:
Distant View of Caernarvon Castle, with the Moon among Clouds c.1798–9
D01864
Turner Bequest XLIII 43a
Watercolour and gouache on blue laid paper prepared with a red-brown ground, 140 x 216 mm
Stamped in black ‘XLIII – 43a’ bottom right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made with the page turned horizontally, like adjacent drawings in blue wash in this series of studies of Caernarvon (see under folio 40 verso; D01856; Turner Bequest XLIII 39a), this seems to show the castle by moonlight, and relates to the small composition studies in the contemporary Dolbadarn sketchbook including Tate D02069 and D02071 (Turner Bequest XLVI 49a, 50a). It is possible that Turner intended his white gouache disc to represent the sun, as in the finished watercolour of Caernarvon Castle exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799 (private collection),1 but here its identification as the moon seems virtually certain.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.328 no.254, pl.47 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Distant View of Caernarvon Castle, with the Moon among Clouds c.1798–9 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-distant-view-of-caernarvon-castle-with-the-moon-among-clouds-r1174064, accessed 08 February 2025.