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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Rokeby and Appleby Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Mortham Tower 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mortham Tower’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Recto:
Mortham Tower 1831
D25542
Turner Bequest CCLXIV 10
Pencil on white wove paper, 74 x 94 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘10’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIV – 10’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view of Mortham Tower is taken from the south and demonstrates how the courtyard house was built onto the earlier peel tower. Although Turner has exaggerated the height of the tower by about a third in this sketch, he was more realistic in a sketch in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border sketchbook, where he also drew a view of the junction of the Greta and Tees rivers with Mortham Tower (from the north) at the right (Tate D25830–D25831; Turner Bequest CCLXVI 35a–36).
Other views of Mortham Tower in the present sketchbook are on folio 6 verso, 8, 9 and perhaps 49 (D25535, D25538, D25540, D25618).

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Mortham Tower 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2009, 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-mortham-tower-r1133901, accessed 26 April 2024.