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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner St Peter's Chapel, Tabley, among Trees 1808

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
St Peter’s Chapel, Tabley, among Trees 1808
D06985
Turner Bequest CV 2
Pencil on white wove paper, 108 x 185 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘2’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CV 2’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For Turner’s visit to Tabley in 1808, see Introduction to the sketchbook. Exploring the grounds, he made this quick thumbnail sketch of St Peter’s Chapel. This family chapel had been built by Sir Peter Leicester, 1st Bart., in 1675–8 alongside the Old Hall on an island in the Moat at Tabley. The tower of the church was added in 1724. At the time of Turner’s visit it had a slender spire. Both the Old Hall and Chapel were badly damaged by subsidence as a result of brine extraction and began to collapse in 1927. The Chapel was dismantled and rebuilt alongside the present, Georgian Tabley House. Another slight sketch of the church is on folio 3 (D06986) and there is a more detailed drawing of it, clearly showing its island situation, on folio 17 (D07116; Turner Bequest CV 84). Today, the island is overgrown and inaccessible.
Verso:
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David Blayney Brown
June 2010

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘St Peter’s Chapel, Tabley, among Trees 1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, 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-st-peters-chapel-tabley-among-trees-r1134502, accessed 25 November 2024.