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

This is the right half of a double-page spread continued from D11996; Turner Bequest CLIII 1a, opposite, recording the view across the northern end of Lake Tiny, looking north-east in the left distance to Almscliff Crag, taken from the lane running down from Farnley Hall, about half a mile behind us. The view is extended further right, to include Leathley Church, on D11999; Turner Bequest CLIII 3. The sketch served as the basis for a finished watercolour known as Lake Tiny, with Almias Cliff in the distance (Hereford City Museum and Art Galleries)1 painted about 1818 for Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall. The inscribed number ‘1’ corresponds to a note of proposed staffage on a preceding page, D11996; Turner Bequest CLIII 1: ‘1 2 Ladies – 1 Gentleman – taking the air’. The present writer has argued that these details might have been suggested by Walter Fawkes when commissioning the watercolour. However, in the event Turner included only a solitary female figure in the finished composition.