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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Thames, London and South of England 1821 ... > Studies at 'The Limes', Mortlake > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The House and Garden at 'The Limes', Mortlake, Looking North-East down the River Thames ?1826

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The House and Garden at 'The Limes', Mortlake, Looking North-East down the River Thames’ ?1826
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The House and Garden at ‘The Limes’, Mortlake, Looking North-East down the River Thames ?1826
D25518
Turner Bequest CCLXIII a 3
Pencil on white wove paper, 143 x 228 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII(a) – 3’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch relates to Turner’s oil painting The Seat of William Moffatt Esq., at Mortlake. Early (Summer’s) Morning, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1826 (Frick Collection, New York).1 As noted in the Introduction to the present subsection, this is one of four drawings which are supplementary or complementary to studies in the Mortlake and Pulborough sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXIII), probably in use at Mortlake in 1825. The direct source for Early (Summer’s) Morning is a double-page Mortlake and Pulborough sketch (Tate D18724–D18725; Turner Bequest CCXIII 10a–11) and the juxtaposition of the tree trunks in the latter is followed very closely in the painting.
The spacing and details of the trees in the present view suggest it was drawn independently, and it is close to another, slighter study in the sketchbook (Tate D18772; Turner Bequest CCXIII 43a); possibly the two were made on the same occasion, on a return visit.
1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.144–5 no.235, pl.236 (colour).
Technical notes:
Finberg describes the work as in ‘Pencil and white chalk on grey’ paper,1 but in common with the other three separate Mortlake studies (Tate D25516, D25517, D34018; Turner Bequest CCLXIII a 1, 2, CCCXLI 299) the paper appears merely off-white, presumably through age, with brown mottling. There is now no obvious evidence of the white chalk he mentions.
The edges are all slightly irregular. There is a shallow diagonal crease at the top right, in common with D25516 (compare also the top left of D34018), which may also relate in some way to the loss of about the same size at the top left of D25517, suggesting that the four sheets were at least initially kept together.
1
Finberg 1909, II, p.845.
Verso:
Blank (laid down).

Matthew Imms
December 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The House and Garden at ‘The Limes’, Mortlake, Looking North-East down the River Thames ?1826 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-house-and-garden-at-the-limes-mortlake-looking-north-r1173007, accessed 21 November 2024.