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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Brighton and Copies from Wilson 1796-7 > Wilson Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Interior of a Forge: Making Anchors 1796-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Interior of a Forge: Making Anchors’ 1796-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 50 Verso:
Interior of a Forge: Making Anchors 1796–7
D01219
Turner Bequest XXXVII 102
Watercolour and gouache with pen and brown ink on blue laid wrapping paper prepared with a red-brown wash, 113 x 93 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXXVII – 102’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The composition continues across folio 51 recto opposite (D01220; Turner Bequest XXXVII 103). Turner was attracted to scenes of industry in which the light of fires contrasts with deep shadow, with moonlight or daylight. He made several drawings of forges and kilns during his tours of this decade, including the kiln at Llanstephan, noted in his South Wales sketchbook (Tate D00571; Turner Bequest XXVI 18) and worked up as a nocturnal watercolour (Tate D00689; Turner Bequest XXVIII D), a foundry visited on his tour of the north of England in 1797 (Tate D01001, Turner Bequest XXXIV 90), with a watercolour version (Tate D00873, Turner Bequest XXXIII B), and a tilt forge drawn in his Swans sketchbook, probably in Wales in 1798 (Tate D01735, D001736; Turner Bequest XLII 60, 61).1

Andrew Wilton
September 2012

1
See Lyles 1989, pp.34–5 under no.32.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Interior of a Forge: Making Anchors 1796–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2012, 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-interior-of-a-forge-making-anchors-r1149909, accessed 29 December 2024.