'Ely Cathedral: The Western Tower Seen from the South East', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Ely Cathedral: The Western Tower Seen from the South East

From Drawings Made on the Midland Tour

Date 1794

MediumGraphite and watercolour on paper

Dimensionssupport: 208 x 279 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D00352

Turner Bequest XXI Y

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Ely Cathedral: The Western Tower Seen from the South East 1794

D00352
Turner Bequest XXI Y

Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 208 x 279 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXI Y’ bottom right

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Exhibition history

References

Turner made another pencil study of the cathedral from this angle, though from farther away (private collection). Both drawings may have been used as guides for a finished watercolour of about 1796, bought by Sir Richard Colt Hoare of Stourhead, Wiltshire (private collection).1 See also Tate D00369 (Turner Bequest XXII P). Turner reverted to the composition for one of the subjects of his series Picturesque Views in England and Wales, as Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, of about 1831 (private collection).2

Finberg inadvertently gave this sheet two numbers in his 1909 Inventory.

Wilton 1979, pp.320–1 no.193, reproduced.

Ibid., p.399 no.845, pl.191.

Verso:

Blank; some splashes of brown colour; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed, in a later hand ‘7’.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.