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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Midlands 1794-1802 > Watercolours Including Midland Subjects > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Transparency: A Moss-Covered Cottage and Shed, with a Man Smoking and a Lantern 1794-5

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Transparency: A Moss-Covered Cottage and Shed, with a Man Smoking and a Lantern’ 1794-5
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Transparency: A Moss-Covered Cottage and Shed, with a Man Smoking and a Lantern 1794–5
D00693
Turner Bequest XXVIII H
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 331 x 235 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘XXVIII H’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXVIII H’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The fashion for transparencies emerged in second half of the 1790s; they were much enjoyed by amateurs. Turner realised that there were important lessons to be learned from the use of pigment on the back of the sheet, to enhance contrasts of opacity and transparency, the inherent characteristics of watercolour. As Bower suggests, he may have anticipated the fashion; the style of this sheet is difficult to reconcile with a date later than early 1795. The treatment of the verso (D40335) with its rich, dense pigments, certainly foreshadows the technical developments in his work of the second half of the decade.
The first of his finished and exhibited watercolours to use the reverse of the paper to enhance the warmth and tone of the image is the view of Chepstow Castle (Courtauld Gallery, London),1 which seems to date from about 1793. Another example is Llandilo Bridge and Dinevor Castle, shown at the Royal Academy in 1796 (National Museum Wales, Cardiff).2 Another specimen in the Turner Bequest is apparently by another hand (Tate D00698; Turner Bequest XXVIII M). Turner may have owned it as an example of a genre in which he wished to experiment; or it may be the work of a pupil.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.311 no.88, reproduced.
2
Ibid., p.315 no.140, reproduced; see Christine Mackay, ‘Turner’s Llandeilo Bridge and Dynevor Castle’ in Colin Ford, Masataka Hayashi, David Alston and others, A Picturesque Tour through Wales 1675 to 1855: Watercolours from the Collection of the National Museums & Galleries of Wales: Festival UK98, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu 1998.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Transparency: A Moss-Covered Cottage and Shed, with a Man Smoking and a Lantern 1794–5 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-transparency-a-moss-covered-cottage-and-shed-with-a-man-r1141110, accessed 23 April 2024.