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

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, Dudley Castle is seen across open ground from the south-east, with the outline of the tower of St Edmund’s Church below it towards the left and the spire of St Thomas’s on the far left beyond a conical chimney. Modern developments make the viewpoint difficult to establish, but a sense of the view is possible from around Watsons Green Road and Wolverton Road on Kates Hill, overlooking Dudley’s Southern Bypass.

There are similar views on the recto (D22095), folio 65 recto opposite (D22097; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 63) and other adjacent pages. Finberg1 thought the present, rather compressed variation related in particular to the watercolour Dudley, Worcestershire of about 1832 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),2 engraved in 1835 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T05097, T06113, T06114), although the most detailed variation in the sequence, on folios 67 verso–68 recto (D22102, D22103; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 65a, 66) was perhaps the most fruitful source for the background, albeit with the rural foreground replaced by canalside industries.

For other views of Dudley see under folio 23 recto (D22016).