Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Medway at Upnor Castle c.1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 88 Recto:
The River Medway at Upnor Castle c.1821
D17502
Turner Bequest CXCIX 88
Turner Bequest CXCIX 88
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 190 mm
Partial watermark ‘nard | 20’
Stamped in black ‘CXCIX – 88’ top left
Partial watermark ‘nard | 20’
Stamped in black ‘CXCIX – 88’ top left
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.609, CXCIX 88, as ‘The Medway at Castle Upnor’.
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.122 under no.425.
1979
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.399 under no.847.
1984
Craig Hartley, Turner Watercolours in the Whitworth Art Gallery, exhibition catalogue, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester 1984, p.49 under no.39.
1989
Ann Sumner, Ruskin and the English Watercolour: From Turner to the Pre-Raphaelites, exhibition catalogue, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester 1989, p.50 under no.71.
1997
Charles Nugent and Melva Croal, Turner Watercolors from Manchester, exhibition catalogue, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis 1997, p.86 under no.52.
As identified by Finberg, the drawing composed across this page, the facing sheet on folio 87 verso (D17501), and folio 86 verso (D17499), inverted relative to the foliation of the sketchbook, describes a view of the River Medway at Castle Upnor.1 The present portion of the study takes in a group of hulks and other vessels at right, with a distant view of Chatham Dockyards at left. A drawing on folio 43 verso (D17438) is often cited as the basis for the man of war in the finished watercolour.2 A detailed list of studies made at Chatham can be found in the entry for folio 22 recto (D17402).
This drawing is widely agreed to have informed the composition for the watercolour Upnor Castle, Kent of around 1831 (Whitworth Art Gallery) 3 engraved by J.B. Allen for the England and Wales series and published in 1833 (Tate impression T06102).4 For a more detailed account of the relationship between the Medway sketchbook drawing and the finished work, as well as for a list of related studies, see the entry for folio 87 verso (D17501).
Maud Whatley
January 2016
How to cite
Maud Whatley, ‘The River Medway at Upnor Castle c.1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2017, https://www