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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Stonehenge Sketchbook [pseudo-Finberg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Stonehenge from the South-East 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Stonehenge from the South-East’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Recto:
Stonehenge from the South-East 1811
D41387
Turner Bequest CXXV b 14
Pencil on white wove paper, 182 x 222 mm
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘14’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.B – 14’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s view is through and between the trilithons of the outer sarsen circle to the inner ‘horseshoe’, from the south-east; the tall stone seen leaning in the distance through the central trilithon has since been set upright. Folios 9 recto–15 recto (D41382–D41388) all show Stonehenge; for Turner’s other views of the monument, see the introduction to the sketchbook.
As discussed there, the pages appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Stonehenge’ in a manuscript list,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Stonehenge, the great trilithons, near view’.2 Figures corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of each sheet.
1
A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.357, as CXXV(b) 1.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356D, as CXXVB 14.
Technical notes:
The sheet is even more wrinkled than others in the sketchbook, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘205 | 1’ bottom right (partly trimmed). There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet.

Matthew Imms
May 2010

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Stonehenge from the South-East 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-stonehenge-from-the-south-east-r1137536, accessed 21 November 2024.