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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North of England 1797-1801 > North of England Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dunstanburgh Castle from the South 1797

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dunstanburgh Castle from the South’ 1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 47 Recto:
Dunstanburgh Castle from the South 1797
D00952
Turner Bequest XXXIV 45
Pencil on white wove paper, 210 x 270 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘45’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XXXIV 45’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject is drawn with the page turned horizontally. This early fourteenth-century castle, dramatically sited on the brink of the Northumberland cliffs about eight miles north-east of Alnwick, was an obvious subject for the topographer of the Sublime, and Turner drew and painted it in several contexts. A painting based on this drawing was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798 (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne);1 preparatory work for it includes the monochrome composition study Tate D01113 (Turner Bequest XXXVI S), and a coloured study, Tate D00890 (Turner Bequest XXXIII S). There is a watercolour version of the subject (National Trust, Wallington Hall).2
Turner made a smaller oil painting, showing the castle from a slightly different viewpoint (Dunedin Public Art Gallery),3 and a finished watercolour of this composition also exists (Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne).4 The two viewpoints were combined in the Liber Studiorum design (see Tate D08118; Turner Bequest CXVI Q) and the watercolour for the England and Wales series (Manchester Art Gallery).5 A further treatment of Dunstanburgh from the south occurs in the painting of 1834, Wreckers, – coast of Northumberland, with a steam-boat assisting a ship off shore (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven).6
1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.4–5 no.6, pl.4 (colour).
2
Not in Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979.
3
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.23–4 no.32, pl.28.
4
Wilton 1979, p.331 no.284.
5
Ibid., p.395 no.814, reproduced.
6
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.206–7 no.357, pl.360 (colour).
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
January 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Dunstanburgh Castle from the South 1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-dunstanburgh-castle-from-the-south-r1150108, accessed 08 February 2025.