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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > London, Oxford and the Home Counties ... > Pencil Drawings of Oxford and the Home ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Oxford: Corpus Christi College and Merton Tower from the Back Gate of Christ Church 1792-3

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Oxford: Corpus Christi College and Merton Tower from the Back Gate of Christ Church’ 1792-3
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Oxford: Corpus Christi College and Merton Tower from the Back Gate of Christ Church 1792–3
D00116
Turner Bequest VIII B
Pencil on white wove paper, 199 x 255 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘T’ or ‘7’ on roof of Merton Chapel, ’12 | 6’ on parapet, and ‘x’ on oriel window within drawing
Stamped in black ‘VIII B’ towards bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
An almost identical view was drawn by D. Harris and engraved for the Oxford Almanack, 1792, by I. Taylor. Youngblood assumes that Turner borrowed his own viewpoint from this, but the connection is not certain. He also associates Turner’s sketch with a watercolour of the same scene in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which has been attributed incorrectly to Turner.1 The style of this drawing belongs with that of the three Windsor views, Tate D00118–D00120 (Turner Bequest VII D, E, F).
The subject is noted on the blank verso (D40221) in a modern hand.
1
Luke Herrmann, Ruskin and Turner: A Study of Ruskin as a Collector of Turner, Based on his Gifts to the University of Oxford; Incorporating a Catalogue Raisonné of the Turner Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, London 1968, p.105 no.94, pl.XLVIII E; Youngblood 1984, pl.7.
Technical notes:
There is a varnish stain to the lower right corner.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Oxford: Corpus Christi College and Merton Tower from the Back Gate of Christ Church 1792–3 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-oxford-corpus-christi-college-and-merton-tower-from-the-back-r1141315, accessed 23 April 2024.