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

This tall sheet is an example of Turner’s sometimes working on two different ‘colour beginning’ compositions from opposite ends; such sheets have usually been divided subsequently. While Finberg recognised one of the subject as including a pyramid,1 Eric Shanes recognised the connection with specific works for his close friend and major patron Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall in Yorkshire (see David Hill’s overall Introduction to the present section). In about 1822 Turner produced a pair of watercolours, The Pyramids – Ancient Chronology (private collection) and Stonehenge – Modern Chronology (private collection), as frontispieces for albums;2 Fawkes commissioned such works for a number of projects on historical and natural history themes,3 and the present sheet shows the development of Turner’s ideas for depictions of the mysterious ancient monuments.4

Turner had imagined the pyramids in his Biblical painting The Fifth Plague of Egypt, exhibited in 1800 (Indianapolis Museum of Art),5 where one is shown brilliantly lit at the centre against a violent storm; he later reworked the composition for the Liber Studiorum (see the entry for Tate D08120; Turner Bequest CXVI S), with three in a different arrangement, the nearest being in silhouette. The present sheet shows a small, dark triangle in the dim distance, while the pale, wave-like forms on the right may represent a second, brightly lit in the foreground, perhaps by the light of the setting sun behind the viewer which also appears to illuminate the rising moon on the left. The vagueness of the effect might indicate Turner experimenting with some idea of a storm or sandstorm, but in the final design the main pyramid is shown in sunlight, almost filling the composition and flanked by another on each side in the distance, its bulk emphasised by minute camels in the foreground and wisps of low cloud passing in front of the summit. Compare also The Pyramids at Gizeh, a watercolour of about 1832 (also Indianapolis Museum of Art)6 engraved in 1836 for Landscape Illustrations of the Bible (Tate impression: T05163), which is lit by a low full moon.

Turner had made a detailed survey of Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, towards the end of his 1811 tour of the West Country, using both the Stonehenge sketchbook (Tate D41382–D41388; Turner Bequest CXXV b 9–15) and the Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (Tate D08749–D08752; Turner Bequest CXXIII 211a, 212, 212a, 213). See the present author’s introduction to the Stonehenge book for a detailed discussion of Turner’s other treatments of the famous megalithic monument.7 These include a ‘colour beginning’ (Tate D25123; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 1) showing only billowing clouds and sheep-like shapes on a plain curiously devoid of stones (like the present study),8 in preparation for the watercolour of about 1827 (Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum),9 engraved as Stone Henge for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales in 1829 (Tate impressions: T04548, T04549, T06083).

In the finished watercolour for Fawkes’s album, the sun is shown very low, presumably setting beyond an unrealistically wide gap between the stones. The disregard for accuracy in favour of mood makes the intended orientation a matter of guesswork. As in the England and Wales design, accuracy is sacrificed for atmosphere.

Technical notes:

The moon in the pyramid subject has been washed out or perhaps lifted out using a fingertip.

Verso:

Blank; laid down.