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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Farnley Hall and Yorkshire c.1808-24 > Farnley Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Valley of the River Wharfe from Caley Crags, with Almscliff Crag and Pool Bridge in the Distance; List of Subjects Planned or Completed for Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall (Inscription by Turner) 1818

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Valley of the River Wharfe from Caley Crags, with Almscliff Crag and Pool Bridge in the Distance; List of Subjects Planned or Completed for Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall (Inscription by Turner)’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Verso:
The Valley of the River Wharfe from Caley Crags, with Almscliff Crag and Pool Bridge in the Distance; List of Subjects Planned or Completed for Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall (Inscription by Turner) 1818
D12013
Turner Bequest CLIII 11a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 185 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil with list of subjects of (or for) watercolours (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The sketch here is the left part of a double-page spread continued to the right on D12014; Turner Bequest CLIII 12 opposite, recording the view from Caley Crags looking north-east across the Wharfe Valley, with Almscliff Crag in the left distance, and the junction of the Rivers Wharfe and Washburn below, with Leathley Church to the left, and to the right Pool Bridge over the Wharfe, and below the crags, slightly to the right, the roof of Caley Hall. Turner sketched the same material from a slightly lower viewpoint on the following pages (D12015–D12016; Turner Bequest CLIII 12a–13). The sketch informed a finished watercolour, View across the Wharfe, from Caley Park (private collection),1 painted for Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall about 1818. The sketch is not numbered like previous sketches in the sketchbook, but it nevertheless presumably relates to no.6 in the list written on an earlier page (D11996; Turner Bequest CLIII 1): ‘6 Deer below – Rabbit Shooter – ’. The present writer has suggested that Walter Fawkes might have made the note when commissioning the watercolour, and in this instance Turner introduced a sportsman preparing his gun into the foreground; however, the target appears instead to be a goat or deer on a rock to the right.
Caley Crags are at the eastern end of Otley Chevin, and offer a fine panorama over the Wharfe Valley towards Farnley Hall. They are the viewpoint of other sketches in the present sketchbook (D12003–D12004, D12005; Turner Bequest CLIII 5a–6, 7 looking up at the crags, and D12009–D12010, D12011; Turner Bequest CLIII 9a–10, 11, looking west).
The list of subjects is continued from the preceding verso (D12011; Turner Bequest 10a). A general note on the list as well as commentary on the individual items is provided in the entry for that page. The list is presented here with surviving ore recorded works indentified where known:
18        Library                                    Unidentified2
19        Old Lodge                               West Lodges, Farnley Hall (private collection)3
20        New Lodge                               East Lodges, Farnley Hall (private collection)4
21        Caley                                       ?Caley Hall (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh)5
22        Rocks West                            Deer Shooting at Caley Crags (on the London art market, 2000)6
23        Rocks deer                               Caley Crags with Deer (private collection)7
24        Park Gate                                West Gates to Caley Park, Otley Chevin (Bradford City Art Galleries)8
25        Lake                                      Unidentified (but see notes to no.2 in this list)
26        Root House                             ?Grounds of Farnley Hall (private collection)9
26        Dining Room                        Dining Room, Farnley Hall (private collection)10
28        Drawing Room                        Drawing Room, Farnley Hall (private collection)11
29        New Stairs Case                    Grand Staircase, Farnley Hall (private collection)12
30        Old Stairs Case                       Oak Staircase, Farnley Hall (private collection)13
31        Fawkes Room                          [Fawkes’s Study at Farnley Hall (private collection)14
32        Ditto                                        Fawkes’ Study at Farnley Hall, with Heraldic Window (private collection)15
33        New Road                                Unidentified
34        New Path                                   Unidentified
35        Farnley Pool Bank                    Unidentified
[starts new column]
         Town House                          The Portico of 45 Grosvenor Place, London, the Town
                                                        House of Walter Fawkes (private collection)16
         London from ditto                London, from the Windows of 45 Grosvenor Place (private collection)17
         Drawing Room                    The Drawing Room, Farnley Hall (private collection)18
         Album of Farnley and Rocks     Unidentified
         Flags                                      ?Banners of the Parliamentarians (private collection)19
         Drawing Room Town            The East Drawing Room of 45 Grosvenor Place (private collection)20
         Vignette Book                       [?Album of Historical Vignettes and Fairfaxiana (private collection)21
36      Vavasour                               Unidentified
         Caltarf Castle Do.                   Clontarf Castle, near Dublin (on the London art market, 1989)22
[starts new column]
         Scarboro’                              [Scarborough Town and Castle: Morning: Boys catching
                                                      Crabs (Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide)23
         Putney                                  November, Flounder-fishing, Putney Bridge (private collection)24
         Cottage door                        May, Chickens (private collection)25
         Mt Blanc                              [?Mont Blanc, from Fort Roch, in the Val d’Aosta (private
collection)26

David Hill
June 2009

1
Wilton 1979, no.618
2
There is a sketch of the library at Farnley Hall in the present sketchbook, (D12021–D12022, D12023; Turner Bequest CLIII 15a–16, 17, but no watercolour of that composition is recorded. Two watercolours listed by Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.369 nos. 595, 596 are called there the library, but are in fact to be identified with nos. 31 and 32 in the present list, where called ‘Fawkes Room’.
3
Wilton 1979, p.368 no.588, based on a sketch in the present sketchbook (D12019–D12020; Turner Bequest CLIII 14a–15).
4
Ibid., p.368 no.589 as ‘Gate and Lodges, Farnley’, based on a sketch in the present sketchbook (D12017–D12018; Turner Bequest CLIII 13a–14).
5
Ibid., p.371 no.612.
6
Sotheby’s sale, London, 30 November 2000, lot 25, based on a sketch in the present sketchbook (D12009–D12010, D12011; Turner Bequest CLIII 9a–10, 11).
7
Wilton 1979, p.371 no.616 as ‘The Deer Park, Caley Hall’, based on a sketch in the present sketchbook (D12003–D12004, D12005; Turner Bequest 5a–6, 7).
8
Ibid., p.371 no.611 as ‘Caley Park, Otley Chevin’, based on a sketch in the present sketchbook (D12006–D12007, D12008; Turner Bequest 7a–8, 9).
9
Ibid., p.370 no.608, based on a sketch in the present sketchbook (Tate D12000–D12001, D12002; Turner Bequest CLIII 3a–4, 5). A ‘root house’ is a form of summerhouse particularly popular in the early nineteenth century, designed in classical of gothic style but made of rude materials – unsawn branches, bent logs, rough bark and ‘roots’. The sketch and watercolour shows just such a structure – a rustic parody of a classical temple – by the side of Lake Tiny at Farnley.
10
Ibid., p.368 no.591 as ‘Morning-room, Farnley’.
11
Ibid., p.368 no.592.
12
Ibid., p.368 no.590.
13
Ibid., p.369 no.594.
14
Ibid., p.369 no.595 as ‘Library, Farnley’. This watercolour is called the ‘Study’ in an 1850 MSS list of the Farnley collection (copies at the National Art Library, Victorian and Albert Museum, and also at Bradford City Libraries), and the title used here is preferred to distinguish the room from the Georgian Library (see no.18 in the present list).
15
Ibid., p.369 no.596 as ‘Library, with heraldic window, Farnley’. This watercolour is called the ‘Study’ in an 1850 MSS list of the Farnley collection (copies at the National Art Library, Victorian and Albert Museum, and also at Bradford City Libraries), and the title used here is preferred to distinguish the room from the Georgian Library (see no.18 in the present list).
16
Bound into an extra-illustrated copy of the catalogue for Walter Fawkes’s exhibition at 45 Grosvenor Place, 1819.
17
Wilton 1979, pp.356–7 no.498.
18
Ibid., p.368 no.592.
19
Bound in an album of ‘Historical Vignettes and Fairfaxiana’; James Hamilton, Turner’s Britain, exhibition catalogue, Gas Hall, Birmingham 2003, p.171 reproduced in colour (lower right).
20
Bound into an extra-illustrated copy of the catalogue for Walter Fawkes’s exhibition at 45 Grosvenor Place, 1819.
21
Possibly some version of the album of ‘Historical Vignettes and Fairfaxiana’ reproduced by Hamilton 2003.
22
Sotheby’s sale, London, 8 April, 1989 lot.109. Walter Fawkes’s second wife, Maria Sophia, was the daughter of John Vernon of Clontarf Castle.
23
Wilton 1979, p.360 no.528.
24
Ibid., p.356 no.491.
25
Ibid., p.356 no.490.
26
Wilton 1979, p.341 no.369. There were several other Mont Blanc subjects in the Fawkes collection, but in the context a larger composition is called for, and this is the only large picture that shows Mont Blanc itself.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘The Valley of the River Wharfe from Caley Crags, with Almscliff Crag and Pool Bridge in the Distance; List of Subjects Planned or Completed for Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall (Inscription by Turner) 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-valley-of-the-river-wharfe-from-caley-crags-with-r1146646, accessed 23 November 2024.