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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley Castle: The Southern Gateway with St Edmund's and St Thomas's Churches to the South-West 1830

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley Castle: The Southern Gateway with St Edmund's and St Thomas's Churches to the South-West’ 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 72 Recto:
Dudley Castle: The Southern Gateway with St Edmund’s and St Thomas’s Churches to the South-West 1830
D22111
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 70
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Partial watermark ‘nard | 20’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘70’ bottom left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXVIII – 70’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main drawing, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, shows the ruins of the lost outer southern gateway of Dudley Castle, looking south-west to the tower of St Edmund’s Church and the spire of St Thomas’s on the skyline. There is a less detailed version of this view in the contemporary Birmingham and Coventry sketchbook (Tate D22405; Turner Bequest CCXL 44). A similar prospect from above the castle’s barbican, a little higher and to the north of the present viewpoint, is on folio 70 recto (D22107; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 68); there the ruins in the foreground here can be seen in the middle distance towards the bottom left, and there is also a small study of the gateway and tower in isolation from the same side on folio 69 verso (D22106; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 67a).
There is a small detail of ruins at the top left, above the church tower; at the top right is a slight continuation of the castle keep from the view on folio 71 verso opposite (D22110; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 69a), which shows the keep and barbican in the opposite direction to the present sketch.
For other views of Dudley see under folio 23 recto (D22016).
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
August 2013

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Dudley Castle: The Southern Gateway with St Edmund’s and St Thomas’s Churches to the South-West 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-dudley-castle-the-southern-gateway-with-st-edmunds-and-st-r1148752, accessed 12 February 2025.