Joseph Mallord William Turner Trematon Castle across the St Germans or Lynher River from Antony 1813
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 118 Recto:
Trematon Castle across the St Germans or Lynher River from Antony 1813
D09345
Turner Bequest CXXXI 118
Turner Bequest CXXXI 118
Pencil on white wove paper, 157 x 95 mm
Watermark ‘Mill | 812’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘118’ top right, and ‘6’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXI – 118’ bottom right
Watermark ‘Mill | 812’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘118’ top right, and ‘6’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXI – 118’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1878
Oxford Loan Collection, University Galleries, Oxford, 1878–1909 or later (59; renumbered 77b, as ‘Study for trees in “Crossing the Brook.”’).
References
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn eds., Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, p.563 (Catalogue of Sketches by Turner Lent by the Trustees of the National Gallery to the Ruskin Drawing School, Oxford. [1878]), no.77, as ‘Study for trees in “Crossing the Brook.”’.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.369, CXXXI 118, as ‘Group of houses with two fir trees in foreground’.
1969
Graham Reynolds, Turner, London 1969, p.212, ill.60, as ‘CXXI [sic] p. 118’, ‘Sketch probably for “Crossing the Brook”’.
1979
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.126, 134 note 31.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.94 under no.130.
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner in his Time, London 1987, pl.143, as ‘A study of the Tamar valley from Tavistock’.
2006
Andrew Wilton, Turner in his Time, revised ed., London 2006, p.93 (colour), as ‘A study of the Tamar valley from Tavistock’.
This drawing continues on folio 117 verso opposite (D09344). The sketches between here and folio 126 recto (D09356) were made around Antony, Cornwall, a village south of the St Germans or Lynher River west of the River Tamar and Plymouth. The view here is from near St James the Great’s Church, looking north-east over the village and river to the profile of Trematon Castle above Antony Passage in the distance on the opposite page. The studies between folios 36 recto and 43 recto (D09255, D09263) were made in the vicinity of the castle. The subjects as far as folio 127 recto (D09358) are all identified or presumed sites within a few miles in and around Plymouth, suggesting a series of fairly short excursions.
John Ruskin identified the trees1 as relating to those in Turner’s major West Country oil painting Crossing the Brook, exhibited in 1815 (Tate N00497),2 showing a view south down the broad Tamar Valley from above Gunnislake Bridge, but any resemblance in the intertwining boughs is probably fortuitous, and was questioned by Finberg.3 See also the entries for folios 68 recto and 84 recto (D09291, D09309) and 251 recto (D09428; Turner Bequest CXXXI 162a). For sketches relating directly to the painting and probably also made in 1813, see the Vale of Heathfield sketchbook (Tate D10271, D10273, D10274; Turner Bequest CXXXVII 46a, 47a, 48).
Andrew Wilton has described the tree studies here and in the 1814 Devon Rivers, No.2 sketchbook (Tate D09713; Turner Bequest CXXXIII 37) as ‘rare in their particularization’.4 Butlin and Joll give the present sketch as an example of ‘drawings of the countryside represented but not actually copied’5 in Crossing the Brook.
Matthew Imms
April 2014
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘Trematon Castle across the St Germans or Lynher River from Antony 1813 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www