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

This is the left part of a double-page spread continued to the right on D12001; Turner Bequest CLIII 4 opposite, and further right on D12002; Turner Bequest CLIII 5, following, recording the view across part of Lake Tiny near Farnley Hall, to a rustic summerhouse seen through a screen of lakeside saplings. The sketch served as the basis of a finished watercolour, Grounds of Farnley Hall (private collection),1 painted for Walter Fawkes of Farnley about 1818. Turner adapted the material quite freely, and the character of the summerhouse is rather more solid and classical in the watercolour.

The inscribed number ‘2’ relates to the list of proposed staffage written on a preceding page (D11996; Turner Bequest CLIII 1): ‘2 About 3 – Ducks – 2 Mallard – Nothing else stirring’. The present writer has suggested that Walter Fawkes might have made the note when commissioning the finished watercolour, although in the event Turner elaborated the ducks to include four at the left with another taking flight to the right. The finished watercolour is cited as ‘26 Root House’ in the list of watercolours in hand (or planned) on another page of this sketchbook (D12013; Turner Bequest CLIII 11a).

Jan Piggott was mistaken in identifying the building in this sketch as the Pheasant’s [or ‘Peasant’s’] Nest.2 The Pheasant’s Nest was on the banks of the River Washburn near Leathley. This is certainly the summerhouse overlooking Lake Tiny.