'Inside the Chapter House of Elgin Cathedral', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Inside the Chapter House of Elgin Cathedral

From Inverness Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CCLXXVII

Date 1831

MediumGraphite on paper

Dimensionssupport: 104 x 163 mm

Collection

Tate

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

Reference

D27212

Turner Bequest CCLXXVII 137 a

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

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the Inverness Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 137 Verso:

Inside the Chapter House of Elgin Cathedral 1831

D27212
Turner Bequest CCLXXVII 137a

Pencil on off-white wove paper, 104 x 163 mm

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

These two sketches depict the elaborately vaulted ceiling of Elgin Cathedral’s octagonal chapter house.1 The ceiling is supported by a single column from where vaulting fans out to each corner. The larger sketch was probably made from the doorway to the cathedral, and the sketch at the left may show the doorway itself with the chapter house beyond, as seen from the north aisle.

This is one of fourteen pages of sketches of Elgin Cathedral in the Inverness sketchbook, see folio 139 (D27215) for references.

Thomas Ardill
May 2010

Identified by David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Sketchbook CCLXXVII Inverness’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [unpaginated].

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.