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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales 1798 > Dynevor Castle Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Donnington Castle: The Ruined Gatehouse 1798

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Donnington Castle: The Ruined Gatehouse’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Verso:
Donnington Castle: The Ruined Gatehouse 1798
D01466
Turner Bequest XL 3a
Pencil and wash on white wove paper, 135 x 95 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘90’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘XL – 3 a’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The composition is continued on folio 4 recto opposite (D01467). This is a notably careful drawing, with a very refined application of grey wash. Donnington, a fortified manor house just north of Newbury, Berkshire, is close to the road Turner would have taken on his way to Bristol. The twin-towered gatehouse is almost all that has survived of the structure. Turner made use of his study for a watercolour (private collection),1 engraved for William Byrne’s Britannia Depicta, issued between 1802 and 1810 (Tate impressions: T05946, T05947). The print is lettered ‘Donnington Castle, taken from a Field adjoining the Road to East Ilsley, from Newbury’.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.335 no.311.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Donnington Castle: The Ruined Gatehouse 1798 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-donnington-castle-the-ruined-gatehouse-r1173702, accessed 24 November 2024.