Joseph Mallord William Turner Mossdale Upper Falls, Wensleydale 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 38 Recto:
Mossdale Upper Falls, Wensleydale 1816
D11549
Turner Bequest CXLVIII 16
Turner Bequest CXLVIII 16
Pencil on white wove paper, 173 x 260 mm
Stamped in black ‘CXLVIII 16’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CXLVIII 16’ top left, inverted
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.427, CXLVIII 16, as ‘Mossdale Fall, Yorkshire’.
1975
Malcolm Cormack, J.M.W. Turner, R.A. 1775–1851: A Catalogue of Drawings and Watercolours in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Cambridge 1975, p.44, no.16 as ‘Mossdale’ (and as belonging to Turner Bequest ‘CLXVII’).
1979
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.366, no.572.
1980
David Hill, Stanley Warburton, Mary Tussey and others, Turner in Yorkshire, exhibition catalogue, York City Art Gallery 1980, p.84, no.133.
1982
Stanley Warburton, Turner and Dr. Whitaker, exhibition catalogue, Towneley Hall Art Gallery & Museums, Burnley 1982, no.57.
1984
David Hill, In Turner’s Footsteps: Through the Hills and Dales of Northern England, London 1984, pp.31, 52 reproduced, 105, 127.
1990
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Human Landscape, London 1990, p.259 reproduced.
This is the left and main part of a double-page spread, continued to the right in a few lines on folio 37 verso (D11550; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 17, now bound opposite), recording the upper falls at Mossdale in Wensleydale about two and three quarter miles north-west of Hawes. Turner made a number of sketches of the falls at Mossdale in this sketchbook, on folios 31 verso, 32 verso and 33 verso (D11568, D40861, D11576; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 27a, 25a, 31a), which the present writer dates to Saturday 27 July 1816.
This sketch formed the basis of a studio watercolour, Moss Dale Fall (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge),1 painted about 1816–17 for Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s seven-volume General History of the County of York (see sketchbook introduction) and engraved by Samuel Middiman in 1822 for the completed part, History of Richmondshire. Eric Shanes has provided a concentrated analysis of the way in which Turner adapted the material of the sketch into the finished composition.2
Finberg wrongly associated this page with folio 30 recto (D11548; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 15a), but the mistake had been noticed and the book rebound accordingly prior to the present writer’s 1984 book. In the present binding, however, the sketch of Mossdale Falls is inverted in relation to the main sequence of subjects, and the Mossdale subjects are interrupted by sketches of Kilnsey in Wharfedale made some days earlier in the itinerary. A fairly comprehensive reordering of this part of the book appears to be required. For further comment see notes to folio 33 verso (D11576; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 31a).
Verso:
Blank
David Hill
May 2009
How to cite
David Hill, ‘Mossdale Upper Falls, Wensleydale 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www