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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Herstmonceux and Pevensey Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Herstmonceux Castle c.1806-10

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Herstmonceux Castle’ c.1806-10
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Recto:
Herstmonceux Castle circa 1806–10
D05656
Turner Bequest XCI 39
Pencil and white chalk on cream wove paper, prepared with a buff wash, 128 x 201 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘39’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XCI 39’ bottom left, descending vertically
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram, bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Dating from the fifteenth century, Herstmonceux Castle was formerly the seat of the Fiennes family, Lords Dacre. It was sold to the Naylor family and in 1777 Robert Hare Naylor, advised by the architect Samuel Wyatt, stripped and demolished the interiors, reducing the brick castle to a picturesque ruin. In 1807 it was bought by Thomas Read Kemp who kept it until 1819, his period of ownership probably coinciding with Turner’s explorations of the site. Views of it in this sketchbook run to folio 44 (D05661) and one in the Views in Sussex sketchbook (Tate D10324; Turner Bequest CXXXVIII 5) served for the watercolour (private collection)1 made for John Fuller and engraved (in open etching only) but not published for William Bernard Cooke’s Views in Sussex. Here, Turner seems to show the gatehouse, walls and bridge from across the moat. Turner has also sketched a ground plan of the castle walls inside the front cover (D40799).

The castle is now used by the International Study Centre of Queen’s University, Canada.
1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.348 no.429).
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
March 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Herstmonceux Castle c.1806–10 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2011, 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-herstmonceux-castle-r1130967, accessed 25 April 2024.