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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > French Tour 1821 > Dieppe, Rouen and Paris Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sketches of Columns and a Ground Plan; Views of the Aqueduct at Arcueil 1821

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of Columns and a Ground Plan; Views of the Aqueduct at Arcueil’ 1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Recto:
Sketches of Columns and a Ground Plan; Views of the Aqueduct at Arcueil 1821
D24522
Turner Bequest CCLVIII 12
Pencil on white wove paper, 123 x 118 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘B[...] a wall’ and ‘arcuil’ beneath the sketch at the bottom right of the page
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘12’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLVIII – 12’ bottom left descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook in the portrait format (the gutter at the top) are three studies of columns and arches and two floor-plans of the arrangement of columns that may be related. There are further sketches of this type of folio 20 verso (Tate D24538; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 20a).
With the sketchbook turned to the left, now at the top-right corner of the page, is a distant view of the aqueduct at Arcueil. Ian Warrell has suggested that this composition formed the basis for the oil painting Tate N02990 which Butlin and Joll catalogued as Ariccia (?): Sunset 1828.1 There are further sketches of the aqueduct on the reverse of this page (Tate D24523; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 12a), and on folio 13 verso (Tate D24525; Turner Bequest CCLVIII 13a), as well as a sort of inscribed map related to Arcueil on the inside back cover of this sketchbook (Tate D41261).

Thomas Ardill
February 2013

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.177 no.305; Warrell 1999, pp.23, 252 notes 38 and 39.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Sketches of Columns and a Ground Plan; Views of the Aqueduct at Arcueil 1821 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-sketches-of-columns-and-a-ground-plan-views-of-the-aqueduct-r1146309, accessed 24 November 2024.