Joseph Mallord William Turner From Heysham, Looking across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District Mountains 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Recto:
From Heysham, Looking across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District Mountains 1816
D11510
Turner Bequest CXLVII 41
Turner Bequest CXLVII 41
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 206 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Old Man’, ‘Holker’, ‘Floo’, Castle H’, ‘Arnside’, ‘Corn’
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘279’ bottom right and ‘41’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CXLVII 41’ bottom right
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Old Man’, ‘Holker’, ‘Floo’, Castle H’, ‘Arnside’, ‘Corn’
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘279’ bottom right and ‘41’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CXLVII 41’ bottom 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.I, p.425, CXLVII 41, as ‘Heysham, with names written over distant peaks’, with transcription.
1910
Alexander J. Finberg, Turner’s Sketches and Drawings, London 1910, reproduced plate LIX, pp.104, 105, 108.
1979
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.366, no.579.
1980
David Hill, Stanley Warburton, Mary Tussey and others, Turner in Yorkshire, exhibition catalogue, York City Art Gallery 1980, p.84, no.132.
1982
Stanley Warburton, Turner and Dr. Whitaker, exhibition catalogue, Towneley Hall Art Gallery & Museums, Burnley 1982, no.67.
1984
David Hill, In Turner’s Footsteps: Through the Hills and Dales of Northern England, London 1984, pp.31, 86–7 (reproduced), 107, 127.
1990
Eric Shanes, Turner’s England 1810–38, London 1990, p.96, no.71.
2006
Emma House, Michael Rudd and Paul Clark, Joseph Mallord William Turner: Tours of Durham and Richmondshire, exhibition catalogue, Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle 2006, p.38.
This is the right half of a double-page spread continued from folio 40 verso (D11509), recording the panorama of Morecambe Bay from above Heysham village, with Heysham Head and St Patrick’s Chapel to the left, and the Lake District mountains in the distance with (left to right on this page), the Coniston ‘Old Man’ group, ‘Holker’ Hall, ‘Floo[kburgh]’ and Castle H[ead]’. The inscription of Flookburgh appears to be misplaced. The village of Flookburgh lies on the same line of sight as Holker Hall. Turner is probably referring to Kents Bank, east of Flookburgh, where the crossing over the sands to Lancaster began. The hills in the right distance to the right of ‘Floo[kburgh]’ are the Fairfield group, Kirkstone Fell and in the distance to the right of Castle Head, the High Street group. The sketch formed the basis of a studio watercolour Heysham and Cumberland Mountains (British Museum, London)1 dated 1818 and engraved in 1822 for Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s History of Richmondshire, part of the projected seven-volume General History of the County of York (see Introduction to the sketchbook).
Above, to the right, Turner has continued the panorama to include ‘Arnside’ Knott.
David Hill
February 2009
Wilton 1979, p.366 no.579. Hill, Warburton and Tussey 1980 point out that the identification of the distant mountains as in Cumberland, as in the title of the watercolour, is an error. The mountains were in the old county of Lancashire. In 1974 the whole of the Lake District was taken into the new county of Cumbria.
How to cite
David Hill, ‘From Heysham, Looking across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District Mountains 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www