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 and Related Subjects > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner View of the Wharfe Valley from Caley Park, Otley Chevin, with a Stone Quarry in the Foreground and Farnley Hall in the Distance to the Right c.1808

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of the Wharfe Valley from Caley Park, Otley Chevin, with a Stone Quarry in the Foreground and Farnley Hall in the Distance to the Right’ c.1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
View of the Wharfe Valley from Caley Park, Otley Chevin, with a Stone Quarry in the Foreground and Farnley Hall in the Distance to the Right c.1808
D12112
Turner Bequest CLIV N
Pencil on heavyweight, white wove paper, 443 x 592 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘ling’ (twice), ‘river’, ‘16 high’, ‘c’ (twice, presumably for corn)
Stamped in brown ‘CLIV N’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of ten large pencil drawings including D12110, D12111, D12115, D12116, D12117, D12118, D12119, D12120 and D12121 (Turner Bequest CLIV L, M, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W) that form a coherent group of sketches in the Wharfe and Washburn Valleys near Farnley Hall, the Yorkshire home of Turner’s patron Walter Fawkes, and record a tour up the River Wharfe from Farnley to Bolton Abbey. Several formed the bases of finished watercolours, some of which are dateable to 1809. Previously dubbed by the present writer the ‘Wharfedale and Washburn’ sketchbook, the drawings do not in fact form a sketchbook but nevertheless appear to record a single campaign, probably in the summer of 1808 on Turner’s first visit to Farnley. It is remarkable that Turner chose to sketch in pencil on such large sheets as these, and it is not at all clear what purpose the large scale was supposed to serve. They must have been problematic to handle in the open air, and we must presume that weather conditions were benign to have made it feasible to work with them.
The present sketch shows a stone quarry in Caley Park at the east end of Otley Chevin looking west up Wharfedale towards Otley and Ilkley. In the left foreground three men are splitting stone from the quarry face, while in the centre two more are cutting and dressing stones and at the right others are loading a cart. Farnley Hall is visible on the slopes on the opposite side of the valley at the right, and Caley Hall in the mid-distance, right of centre.
Verso:
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David Hill
July 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘View of the Wharfe Valley from Caley Park, Otley Chevin, with a Stone Quarry in the Foreground and Farnley Hall in the Distance to the Right c.1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 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-view-of-the-wharfe-valley-from-caley-park-otley-chevin-with-r1146613, accessed 23 November 2024.