Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Trematon Castle, Cornwall c.1828
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?Trematon Castle, Cornwall c.1828
D25256
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 134
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 134
Watercolour on white wove paper, 313 x 505 mm
Watermark ‘B.E, & S, | 1828’
Inscribed in red ink ‘134’ bottom right (now very faint)
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 134’ bottom right
Watermark ‘B.E, & S, | 1828’
Inscribed in red ink ‘134’ bottom right (now very faint)
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 134’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1965
[Display of watercolours from the Turner Bequest], Tate Gallery, London, ?–?March 1965 (no catalogue, as ‘Lake scene, with mountains’).
1983
J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, October 1983–January 1984 (212, reproduced, as ‘Étude de couleurs: lac avec un promontoire au loin’, ?1830–5).
1997
Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, Tate Gallery, London, February–June 1997, Southampton City Art Gallery, June–September 1997 (13, reproduced in colour, as ‘?Trematon Castle, Cornwall’, ?c.1828).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.824, CCLXIII 134, as ‘Lake scene, with mountains’. c.1820–30.
1983
Andrew Wilton in John Gage, Jerrold Ziff, Nicholas Alfrey and others, J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, exhibition catalogue, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris 1983, p.269 no.212, reproduced, as ‘Étude de couleurs: lac avec un promontoire au loin’. ?1830–5.
1997
David B[layney] Brown, Yasuhide Shimbata and Hideko Numata, J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: A Tate Gallery Collection Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, Yokohama Museum of Art 1997, p.201 fig.9.
1997
David Hill, ‘Turner’s “Colour Beginnings” in Britain’, Turner Society News, no.76, August 1997, p.7.
1997
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.24, 42, 94, 96, 105 (p.42 no.13, reproduced in colour, as ‘?Trematon Castle, Cornwall’. ?c.1828, p.94 Appendix I under ‘Cornwall’, as ‘?Trematon Castle’. ?c.1828, p.96 under ‘England and Wales Series’, as ‘?Study for Trematon Castle, Cornwall’. c.1828, p.105 Appendix II, as ‘Study: ?Trematon Castle, Cornwall’).
This colour study has been tentatively related by Eric Shanes to the watercolour Trematon Castle, Cornwall of about 1828 (currently untraced),1 engraved in 1830 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T04563, T04564).2 Turner visited Trematon Castle, above Forder Lake off the St Germans or Lynher River west of the River Tamar and Plymouth, in 1813, and drew it and its surroundings in the Plymouth, Hamoaze sketchbook (Tate D09255–D09263; Turner Bequest CXXXI 36–43). The serene finished composition is actually somewhat confused, in that it appears to conflate and adapt sketches made in opposite directions, with the left-hand side based on D09263 (CXXXI 43), looking north up Forder Lake to the castle, and the right taken from D09262 (CXXXI 42), looking south down the lake from below it.
If this is a study for Trematon Castle, the significant variations in its composition compared with the finished design may reflect Turner’s difficulties in recalling and ordering the topography of this relatively secluded spot. David Hill has noted the ‘tentative’ status of Shanes’s identification.3 Andrew Wilton had previously suggested the present work as a ‘colour beginning’ for Keswick Lake of about 1835 (British Museum, London),4 engraved in 1837 for England and Wales (Tate impressions: T04608, T06124),5 although any correlation with the Lake District scene appears even less direct. Shanes has also proposed Tate D36306 (Turner Bequest CCCLXV 16) as a Trematon colour study.
See also the introductions to the present subsection of identified subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: in pencil ‘AP 150 P’ top left, upside down; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram above ‘CCLXIII – 134’ bottom right; and in pencil ‘CCLXIII 134’ bottom right.
Blank, save for inscriptions: in pencil ‘AP 150 P’ top left, upside down; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram above ‘CCLXIII – 134’ bottom right; and in pencil ‘CCLXIII 134’ bottom right.
Matthew Imms
March 2013
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘?Trematon Castle, Cornwall c.1828 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www