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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales and Isle of Wight 1795-1800 > Smaller South Wales Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Wells: The South West Tower of the Cathedral from the Cloisters 1795

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Wells: The South West Tower of the Cathedral from the Cloisters’ 1795
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Recto:
Wells: The South West Tower of the Cathedral from the Cloisters 1795
D00465
Turner Bequest XXV 4
Pencil on white wove paper, 205 x 130 mm
Inscribed by Ruskin in blue ink ‘4’ bottom right, descending vertically, and ‘29[5]’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XXV – 4’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s approach to the rendering of complex Gothic architecture had been much refined and practised with his studies of Lichfield, Ely and Cambridge in the course of the 1794 Midland tour, covered elsewhere in the present catalogue. Here, in a sheet that Ruskin singled out for display, the intricacy of Wells’s cloisters, dating from the early fifteenth century, and the fifteenth-century upper section of the south west tower, are juxtaposed with the early fourteenth-century nave in the clear-sighted and direct recording style that he had now mastered.
Technical notes:
Part of John Ruskin’s inscription on his wrapper for the sketchbook, recorded by Finberg, read ‘5 leaves taken out which were burnt at the edge’;1 this refers to folios 1 recto–5 recto (D00462–D00466).
The leaf is discoloured from long exposure while on display. The last digit of Ruskin’s ‘29[5]’ is missing owing to loss at that corner but can be deduced from similar inscriptions on preceding pages, such as folio 3 recto (D00464).
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.43; see also p.44.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Wells: The South West Tower of the Cathedral from the Cloisters 1795 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-wells-the-south-west-tower-of-the-cathedral-from-the-r1140784, accessed 21 November 2024.