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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Bristol and Malmesbury 1791 > Subjects Related to the Bristol and ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The West Tower of Malmesbury Abbey 1791

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The West Tower of Malmesbury Abbey’ 1791
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The West Tower of Malmesbury Abbey 1791
D00111
Turner Bequest VII D
Pencil, watercolour and pen and brown ink on white wove paper, 327 x 248 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Although twice as large as the drawings in the Bristol and Malmesbury sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest VI), this is similar in style to Tate D00109 and D00114 (Turner Bequest VII B and G), and was perhaps intended as one of the ‘12 views on the River Avon’ (see introduction to the Bristol and Malmesbury book). In any case, Turner used it, like Tate D00110 (Turner Bequest VII C), in the execution of the finished watercolour of Malmesbury exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1792 (436), now in Norwich Castle Museum.1
See also the verso (D40031), where Turner has inscribed the subject’s title.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.303 no.25, reproduced.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘The West Tower of Malmesbury Abbey 1791 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-west-tower-of-malmesbury-abbey-r1140431, accessed 22 November 2024.