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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Thames sketchbooks c.1804-14 > Hesperides (2) Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Trees by the Thames; ?Sutton Courtenay 1805

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trees by the Thames; ?Sutton Courtenay’ 1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Verso:
Trees by the Thames; ?Sutton Courtenay 1805
D05893
Turner Bequest XCIV 37a
Pencil on white wove paper, prepared with a grey wash, 143 x 228 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
See catalogue note to folio 35 verso of the sketchbook (D05889), a slighter sketch that seems to show the same pollarded willow near the centre and group of trees to its right; 36 verso (D05891) has similar features and clearly shows Wittenham Clumps in the right distance. The stretch of river in all three sketches may be near Sutton Courtenay, as Hill suggests for the present example, which he also relates to the contemporary, unfinished oil Washing Sheep (Tate N02699);1 this is surely correct, although elsewhere, while noting the presence of Wittenham Clumps in the background, he suggests the oil depicts scenery near Dorchester. It had formerly been suggested that the oil represents the River Wey.2

David Blayney Brown
December 2007

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.119 no.173 (pl.173).
2
Letter from Christopher Pinsent, 2 March 1970, cited ibid.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Trees by the Thames; ?Sutton Courtenay 1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2007, 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-trees-by-the-thames-sutton-courtenay-r1130116, accessed 19 September 2024.