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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Thames, London and South of England 1821 ... > Thames Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Thames Valley from Richmond Hill c.1825

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Thames Valley from Richmond Hill’ c.1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 6 Verso:
The Thames Valley from Richmond Hill c.1825
D18605
Turner Bequest CCXII 6a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 188 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?milk ...] up [?the ...]’ left of centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This slight sketch looking west over the River Thames from Richmond Hill is a reprise of the one on folio 5 verso (D18603), under other views in this sketchbook and related works are discussed. Here Turner seems to have made a note of someone carrying milk up the steep slope of Nightingale Lane or the hill itself.
The present drawing is among those which would have generally informed two watercolours: Richmond Hill of about 1825 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),1 engraved in 1826 for the Literary Souvenir (Tate impression: T06132); and Richmond Terrace, Surrey of about 1836 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool),2 engraved in 1838 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T04611, T06128). The framing devices of a building on the left (The Wick) and trees in the foreground on the right are seen in the England and Wales design.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.359 no.518, pl.135; see also Shanes 2000, p.180.
2
Wilton 1979, p.403 no.879, reproduced; see also Shanes 1979, p.156, and Shanes 2004, p.128.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Thames Valley from Richmond Hill c.1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-thames-valley-from-richmond-hill-r1172722, accessed 21 November 2024.