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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Vignette watercolours c.1826-1843 > Watercolours Related to The Poetical ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Vignette Study of Beach, Headland and Solitary Figure; ?Study for 'O'Connor's Child' for Campbell's 'Poetical Works' c.1835-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Vignette Study of Beach, Headland and Solitary Figure; ?Study for 'O'Connor's Child' for Campbell's 'Poetical Works'’ c.1835-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Vignette Study of Beach, Headland and Solitary Figure; ?Study for ‘O’Connor’s Child’ for Campbell’s ‘Poetical Works’ circa 1835–6
D27559
Turner Bequest CCLXXX 42
Watercolour 115 x 156 mm on off-white machine-made cartridge paper, 179 x 227 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘(42’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXX 42’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This work is one of a group of more than thirty watercolour sketches in the Turner Bequest that appear to be preliminary studies for Campbell’s Poetical Works. They are all painted on cheap, lightweight paper and executed in a rough, loose style. This sketch of a figure looking out towards a tranquil sea bears a strong resemblance to other studies in this group (see Tate D27574; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 57 and Tate D27557; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 40). Although the content and composition of these works cannot be directly linked to any of the finished illustrations for the series, their lonely melancholy mood may reflect Campbell’s poem ‘O’Connor’s Child’, the tragic tale of the daughter of an Irish chieftain whose lover is murdered by her brothers. In particular, the motif of a solitary figure standing on a shore recalls the following lines:
Why lingers she from Erin’s host,
So far on Galway’s shipwreck’d coast;
Why wanders she a huntress wild –
O’Connor’s pale and lovely child?
(Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, 1837, p.68)
There is also a resemblance to another preliminary study (see Tate D27576; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 59).
The watercolour was part of a parcel of studies described by John Ruskin as ‘A.B. 40. PO. Vignette beginnings, once on a roll. Worthless’.1 For an explanation of his meaning of ‘once on a roll’ see the technical notes above. Finberg records how Ruskin later described his phrasing in a letter to Ralph Nicholson Wornum as ‘horrible’, adding ‘I never meant it to be permanent’.2
1
Finberg 1909, vol.II, p.894.
2
Ibid., vol.I, p.xi.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower has noted that this study is made on off-white low-grade machine-made cartridge paper. The maker is unknown and there is no watermark. This paper would have been relatively cheap to buy and could have been purchased from a colourman, cut off from a roll to the desired size. Turner has used the ‘felt’ side of the paper which has slightly more texture than the ‘wire’ side, allowing better adhesion of pigment and graphite to the surface of the sheet. Many of Turner’s vignette studies were made on a similar grade of machine-made paper, and the artist employed the ‘felt’ side on all of them.1
1
Bower 1999, p.59.
Verso:
Inscribed by an unknown hand in pencil ‘AB 40 P | O’ bottom right

Meredith Gamer
August 2006

How to cite

Meredith Gamer, ‘Vignette Study of Beach, Headland and Solitary Figure; ?Study for ‘O’Connor’s Child’ for Campbell’s ‘Poetical Works’ c.1835–6 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2006, 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-vignette-study-of-beach-headland-and-solitary-figure-study-r1133405, accessed 21 November 2024.