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

Finberg called this the back view of a hussar1 (a light cavalryman), but the loose annotated sketch, made with the page turned vertically, appears to show the man’s uniform from the front, with the peak of his plumed shako cap, the fastening of his collar at the throat, the tapering outline of the braided frogging on his jacket and the diagonal slings for his sword on his left side; he may be holding a swagger stick or riding crop in his right hand, resting on his hip.

Eric Shanes has noted this study in connection with Turner’s watercolour Richmond Hill of about 1825 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),2 engraved in 1826 for the Literary Souvenir (Tate impression: T06132), which features a view of the River Thames from the hillside, populate by numerous figures including one in a similar uniform. There are various sketches of the view in the present book (see under folio 5 verso; D18603), and Turner may have observed soldiers at leisure there; he had depicted them among the elegant party in his large painting England: Richmond Hill, on the Prince Regent’s Birthday (Tate N00502),3 exhibited in 1819.

Technical notes:

There is some rubbing or offsetting of pigment from the watercolour on folio 10 recto opposite (D18611).