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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Scotland 1818-20 > Edinburgh, 1818, Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Vessels and a Church 1818

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Vessels and a Church’ 1818
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Recto:
Vessels and a Church 1818
D13465
Turner Bequest CLXVI 9
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 112 mm
Stamped in black ‘CLXVI 9’ top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the book in its usual landscape orientation is the continuation of a drawing of sailing boats from folio 8 verso (D13464), while with the book turned to the left is a sketch of two churches.
The two churches can be identified with reference to folio 7 verso (D13462). The larger church is St John the Evangelist on Edinburgh’s Princes Street, seen here before the present chancel was built in 1822, and next to it is St Cuthbert’s. Turner presumably made the folio 7 verso drawing on Princes Street first, and then walked around the back of the church to what is now Princes Street Gardens to sketch the back, from where he also, perhaps on the same occasion, drew Edinburgh Castle (Bass Rock and Edinburgh Sketchbook, Tate D13438; Turner Bequest CLXV 63a).
The top right corner of the page has been torn off and subsequently repaired, resulting in no loss to the drawing as far as it is possible to tell.

Thomas Ardill
December 2007

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Vessels and a Church 1818 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2007, 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-vessels-and-a-church-r1132010, accessed 21 November 2024.