Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Thames with Isleworth Ferry 1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
The River Thames with Isleworth Ferry
1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The River Thames with Isleworth Ferry 1805
D05916
Turner Bequest XCV 12
Turner Bequest XCV 12
Pencil and watercolour with scratching and stopping out on white wove paper, 258 x 366 mm
Stamped in black ‘XCV 12’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XCV 12’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1934
Display of Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery, London, March 1934–May 1937 (frame 1:17), as ‘Scene on the Thames (near Windsor)’.
1963
Turner Watercolors from The British Museum: A Loan Exhibition Circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, September–October 1963, Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Texas, November 1963, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, December 1963–January 1964, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, January–March 1964, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, March–April 1964, Brooklyn Museum, New York, May 1964, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June–July 1964 (10).
1965
Display of Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery, London, March 1965 (no number).
1969
A Decade of English Naturalism 1810–1820, Norwich Castle Museum, November–December 1969, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, January–February 1970 (44).
1972
J.M.W. Turner: Gemälde • Aquarelle, Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, September–November 1972 (43).
1973
Turner {1775 / 1851}: desenhos, aguarelas e óleos / Drawings, Watercolours and Oil Paintings, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, June–July 1973 (9).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (33).
1980
Turner at the Bankside Gallery: Drawings & Water-colours of British River Scenes from the British Museum, Bankside Gallery, London, November–December 1980 (27).
1983
J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, October 1983–January 1984 (115).
1987
Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery, London, April–October 1987 (no number).
1990
Painting and Poetry: Turner’s ‘Verse Book’ and his Work of 1804–1812, Tate Gallery, London, June–September 1990 (19).
1993
J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Impressions de Gran Bretanya i el Continent Europeu / Impresiones de Gran Bretaña y el Continente Europeo, Centre Cultural de la Fundació ”la Caixa”, Barcelona, September–November 1993, Sala de Exposiciones de la Fundación ”la Caixa”, Madrid, November 1993–January 1994 (23).
1994
J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Aquarelles et Dessins du Legs Turner: Collection de la Tate Gallery, Londres / Watercolours and Drawings from the Turner Bequest: Collection from the Tate Gallery, London, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi, September–December 1994 (23).
2001
William Turner: Licht und Farbe, Museum Folkwang Essen, September 2001–January 2002, Kunsthaus Zürich, February–May 2002 (57).
2005
Turner’s Picture of Britain, Tate Britain, London, June 2005–April 2006 (no number).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.246, as ‘River scene, with shipping’.
1963
Edward Croft-Murray, Turner Watercolors from The British Museum: A Loan Exhibition Circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 1963, pp.9, 29 reproduced as ‘On the Thames, near Windsor (?)’.
1969
John Gage, A Decade of English Naturalism 1810–1820, exhibition catalogue, Norwich Castle Museum 1969, p.24.
1972
Werner Haftmann, Andrew Wilton, Henning Bock and others, J.M.W. Turner: Gemälde Aquarelle, exhibition catalogue, Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin 1972, pp.28 reproduced in colour, 111.
1973
Norman Reid, Andrew Wilton and Luke Herrmann, Turner {1775 / 1851}: desenhos, aguarelas e óleos / Drawings, Watercolours and Oil Paintings, exhibition catalogue, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon 1973, p.26.
1974
Gerald Wilkinson, The Sketches of Turner, R.A. 1802–20: Genius of the Romantic, London 1974, p.75 reproduced in colour.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, p.40 reproduced.
1980
Michael Spender and Malcolm Fry, Turner at the Bankside Gallery: Catalogue of an Exhibition of Drawings & Water-colours of British River Scenes from the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Bankside Gallery, London 1980, pp.62, 63 reproduced.
1990
Andrew Wilton and Rosalind Mallord Turner, Painting and Poetry: Turner’s ‘Verse Book’ and his Work of 1804–1812, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990, pp.29 reproduced in colour, 121 reproduced.
1993
David Hill, Turner on the Thames: River Journeys in the Year 1805, New Haven and London 1993, pp.47, 48 reproduced in colour pl.52, 49 detail reproduced, 170, as ‘Thames near Isleworth’.
1993
Ian Warrell, J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: Impressions de Gran Bretanya i el Continent Europeu / Impresiones de Gran Bretaña y el Continente Europeo, exhibition catalogue, Centre Cultural de la Fundació ”la Caixa”, Barcelona 1993, pp.94, 95 reproduced in colour, 277.
1994
Ian Warrell, J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851,: Aquarelles et Dessins du Legs Turner: Collection de la Tate Gallery, Londres / Watercolours and Drawings from the Turner Bequest: Collection from the Tate Gallery, London, exhibition catalogue, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Charleroi 1994, p.31.
2001
David Hill, ‘Thames Sketches, 1805’, in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann eds., The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.334.
2001
Andrew Wilton, Inge Bodesohn-Vogel and Helena Robinson, William Turner: Licht und Farbe, exhibition catalogue, Museum Folkwang Essen 2001, pp.128 reproduced in colour, 302 reproduced, 303.
This was a right-hand page from the sketchbook. Before the subject was recognised as Isleworth, some commentators stated that Windsor Castle is visible in the background. For Isleworth views from this sketchbook, made near Turner’s residence at Sion (or Syon) Ferry House, see Introduction and Tate D05915; Turner Bequest XCV 11. Several of these are closely related, as Hill observes. This view is perhaps from the summer-house at the bottom of Turner’s garden, which is visible in the view of Ferry House, Tate D05952; Turner Bequest XCV 48. The same graceful tree appears in both views, facing in opposite directions. There is a ferry in the left foreground as well as other boats including a sailing barge, centre. A similar view, probably with the same buildings in the right distance (mistaken in this case for Windsor Castle by Finberg) but lacking the tree, is Tate D05949; Turner Bequest XCV 45).
Dark rain clouds sweep in from the right. The angle of light to the right behind the clouds indicates early afternoon. While many commentators stress the naturalism of this and other watercolours from the sketchbook, Wilton also argues for their idealism: ‘Ostensibly an unaffected and rapidly executed view of an informal rural subject, it is in fact carefully constructed as a classical landscape’.1
Turner’s thumb print is visible above the boat, lower left.
Verso:
Blank, save for trials of watercolour in one corner. Inscribed by an old hand in pencil ‘19’.
David Blayney Brown
January 2009
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘The River Thames with Isleworth Ferry 1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www