Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Dudley: A Canal or Quarry 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 47 Verso:
?Dudley: A Canal or Quarry 1830
D22412
Turner Bequest CCXL 47a
Turner Bequest CCXL 47a
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 68 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Lime]’ centre left and ‘[?New Bsin]’ centre right
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Lime]’ centre left and ‘[?New Bsin]’ centre right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.739, CCXL 47a, as ‘Do. [i.e. ditto: Dudley] “New Basin,” &c.’.
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.122 under no.426, as a Dudley subject.
1979
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Picturesque Views in England and Wales 1825–1838, London 1979, p.156, as a Dudley subject.
1990
Frank Milner, J.M.W. Turner: Paintings in Merseyside Collections: Walker Art Gallery; Sudley Art Gallery; Williamson Art Gallery; Lady Lever Art Gallery; Liverpool University Art Gallery, Liverpool 1990, p.53 under no.26, as a Dudley subject.
As part of unpublished Turner research informed by local knowledge, Dr Bernard Richards suggested this is a view below Dudley Castle, comparing it with a subject by David Cox (1783–1859),1 perhaps Cox’s 1830’s Dudley Castle with Lime Kilns and Canal (Dudley Art Gallery),2 loosely comparable to Turner’s watercolour Dudley, Worcestershire of about 1832 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),3 engraved in 1835 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T05097, T06113, T06114). However, while Cox’s landscape is conventional, with the kilns and canal in the foreground and the castle on the horizon, the subject of Turner’s rapid sketch here, made with the page turned vertically, is so uncertain that only his apparent inscriptions ‘Lime’ and ‘New Basin’ give clues as to a specific setting, which may be the Dudley Canal at Tipton, north of the castle. Turner’s broad hatching above what may be an archway or opening may even indicate that the sketch was made inside a tunnel; if so, whether the site was associated with a canal or local limestone mining and quarrying remains unclear.
Matthew Imms
August 2013
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘?Dudley: A Canal or Quarry 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