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

This view is taken from the left bank of the River Ure, looking west from the apex of a large oxbow immediately east of Ellenthorpe Hall, looking upstream to the Hall at the right and downstream at the left towards Aldborough. The placing of Turner’s inscription ‘Aldborough’ is slightly misleading, for the village is actually in the left distance of the composition, and his inscription of ‘Ouse’ on the river is also mistaken, although only on a technicality. This is the same river that flows through York, but changes its name from Ure to Ouse about half-way between Aldborough and York.

This sketch is out of sequence in relation to Turner’s itinerary. The sketches of York end raggedly across several pages of the sketchbook, interspersed with numerous blanks. Turner’s route took him from York to Boroughbridge, whence he visited Ellenthorpe Hall on the north bank of the Ure. This sketch was probably made immediately after that of Ellenthorpe on folio 30 (D10922), where the same poplar trees can be seen, but from the opposite direction.

For Ellenthorpe Hall see D10922).