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 > Hastings Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Steeple of St Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford 1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Steeple of St Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford’ 1809
Folio 84 Recto:
The Steeple of St Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford 1809
D07724
Turner Bequest CXI 84
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 88 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘84’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXI 84’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For views of Oxford in this sketchbook, associated with Turner’s work for James Wyatt, see Introduction and notes to folio 43 verso (D07659), depicting the same subject. This is a rather more detailed drawing of part of the steeple, in which it appears more slender. Turner’s correspondence with Wyatt, who thought that Turner had initially made the spire appear too squat in his View of the High-Street, Oxford (Loyd Collection; on loan to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)1 is cited under D07659.

David Blayney Brown
May 2011

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.73–4 no.102 (pl.109).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The Steeple of St Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford 1809’, catalogue entry, May 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/the-steeple-of-st-mary-the-virgin-oxford-r1131211, accessed 19 April 2024.