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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Colour Studies of the Sun, Skies and ... > Colour Studies of the Sun and Clouds at ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Sun Rising through Cloud or Mist c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Sun Rising through Cloud or Mist’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?The Sun Rising through Cloud or Mist c.1820–40
D25200
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 78
Watercolour on white wove paper, 306 x 489 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘78’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 78’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With its reserved patch of blank white paper within a hazy yellow mass of cloud or mist against a blue sky, this appears to be an evocation of a dawn effect. For other ‘colour beginnings’ focusing on a centrally placed sun, see the Introduction to this subsection.
Technical notes:
Irregular staining is evident at the top right, possibly sustained in the 1928 Tate Gallery flood.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil by John Ruskin ‘AB 150 P | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII. 78’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXIII – 78’ bottom left.
There is some staining, perhaps offset from the edge of another sheet.

Matthew Imms
March 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?The Sun Rising through Cloud or Mist c.1820–40 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-sun-rising-through-cloud-or-mist-r1183169, accessed 21 November 2024.