Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Tipton Entrance to Dudley Canal Tunnel 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Recto:
?The Tipton Entrance to Dudley Canal Tunnel 1830
D22397
Turner Bequest CCXL 40
Turner Bequest CCXL 40
Pencil on white wove paper, 68 x 110 mm
Partial watermark ‘[Prince of Wales feathers]’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Barges pay to go thro’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘40’ top left, upside down (now very faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCXL – 40’ top left, upside down
Partial watermark ‘[Prince of Wales feathers]’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Barges pay to go thro’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘40’ top left, upside down (now very faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCXL – 40’ top left, upside down
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.II, p.739, CCXL 40, as ‘Do.’ (i.e. ditto: ‘View, with buildings’).
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.122 under no.426, as a Dudley subject.
1990
Frank Milner, J.M.W. Turner: Paintings in Merseyside Collections: Walker Art Gallery; Sudley Art Gallery; Williamson Art Gallery; Lady Lever Art Gallery; Liverpool University Art Gallery, Liverpool 1990, pp.53, 54, 55 under no.26, reproduced, as ‘Study for “Dudley” at Tipton Basin’, with transcription.
Frank Milner identified this rough sketch, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, as showing the Tipton entrance to the Dudley Canal tunnel, where ‘Barges pay to go thro[ugh]’ as Turner noted.1 The tunnel runs for about two miles south-west under Dudley, and its northern entrance is now part of the Black Country Living Museum, but the stark, open landscape shown here is difficult to relate to specific features today. There is a similar view on folio 39 verso opposite (D22396). As part of unpublished Turner research informed by local knowledge, Dr Bernard Richards independently suggested the same subject.2 Milner made a loose connection with the industrial canal setting of Turner’s watercolour Dudley, Worcestershire of about 1832 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),3 engraved in 1835 for England and Wales (Tate impressions: T05097, T06113, T06114), while noting that ‘there is no fully worked out foreground study’.
For more on the watercolour and other views of Dudley, see under folio 39 recto (D22395).
Technical notes:
This leaf is affected by the extensive pale brown, mottled staining which extends throughout this particular gathering (folios 31–42; D22379–D22402) and also folios 30 and 43 recto and verso (D22377, D22378, D22403, D22404), as discussed in the Technical notes to the sketchbook’s Introduction.
Matthew Imms
August 2013
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘?The Tipton Entrance to Dudley Canal Tunnel 1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www