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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North of England 1797-1801 > Tweed and Lakes Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Windermere: Belle Isle from Cockshott Point, with the Round House 1797

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Windermere: Belle Isle from Cockshott Point, with the Round House’ 1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 71 Recto:
Windermere: Belle Isle from Cockshott Point, with the Round House 1797
D01058
Turner Bequest XXXV 56
Pencil on white wove paper, 274 x 370 mm
Watermark ‘1794 | J Whatman’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXXV 56’ bottom left, descending vertically
Turner scholar David Hill describes this drawing, made with the page turned horizontally, as a ‘quick note’, but despite the evident rapidity of its execution Turner seems to have wanted to preserve a careful record of the appearance of the Round House, a famous modern building designed by John Plaw for a Mr English in 1774. It was bought by John Christian Curwen in 1781 and the island, formerly ‘Great Island’, was renamed ‘Belle Isle’ after Curwen’s wife Isabella. The Round House figures in a pair of views of Belle Isle by Philip James de Loutherbourg (1740–1812), now in the Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal. Claife Heights can be seen rising in the background of Turner’s drawing.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by A.J. Finberg in pencil ‘141.56’.

Andrew Wilton
August 2010

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Windermere: Belle Isle from Cockshott Point, with the Round House 1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-windermere-belle-isle-from-cockshott-point-with-the-round-r1150235, accessed 19 April 2024.