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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Tour of Yorkshire 1816 > Yorkshire 4 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner St Agatha's Church and Abbey, Easby, from the South-East, Richmond in the Distance 1816

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Agatha's Church and Abbey, Easby, from the South-East, Richmond in the Distance’ 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Recto:
St Agatha’s Church and Abbey, Easby, from the South-East, Richmond in the Distance 1816
D11474
Turner Bequest CXLVII 21
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 206 mm
Watermarked ‘[WHA]TMAN | [18]14’
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘279’ bottom right and ‘21’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CXLVII 21’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner records St Agatha’s Abbey, Easby from the south-east, near Easby Hall, with the small church of St Agatha in the foreground, and the keep of Richmond Castle in the centre distance. The sketch served as the basis of a watercolour study or ‘colour-beginning’ (Tate D25153; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 31). Turner sketched a similar view in the Yorkshire 2 sketchbook (Tate D11238; Turner Bequest CXLV 119), which accompanied him on the same tour.
St Agatha’s Abbey, Easby, stands on the north bank of the River Swale about three quarters of a mile downstream (east) of Richmond. It was founded by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1155 for a community of Premonstratensian canons and was suppressed in 1536. The extensive and substantial remains are in the care of English Heritage and open to the public.

David Hill
February 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘St Agatha’s Church and Abbey, Easby, from the South-East, Richmond in the Distance 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.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-st-agathas-church-and-abbey-easby-from-the-south-east-r1143609, accessed 03 February 2025.