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

Like those on folios 6 recto and verso and 7 recto (D20604–D20606), this sketch shows Windsor Castle to the south-east beyond trees beside the River Thames in the vicinity of Eton College. A tortuously twisted willow tree dominates the foreground, while Turner has made a written note of swans beyond, calling to mind the bucolic Thames sketches he had made around Isleworth in 1805, where grand buildings act as a backdrop to the river’s flora and fauna; see for example Tate D04163 (Turner Bequest LXX L). Turner’s note of them near the royal residence at Windsor is appropriate given the Monarchy’s traditional ownership rights over Thames swans, exercised through the annual census depicted in the 1915–19 painting Swan Upping at Cookham (Tate T00525) by Stanley Spencer (1891–1959).

For other views in the area and further discussion see under folio 2 recto (D20598).