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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Tweed, with Rainbow 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Tweed, with Rainbow’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Verso:
The Tweed, with Rainbow 1831
D25947
Turner Bequest CCLXVII 11a
Pencil on off-white wove writing paper, 113 x 185 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘grey’ top left, ‘w’ top right, ?‘Galash’ right, ‘dark’ lower centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg has identified this sketch as the River ‘Tweed, with [a] Rainbow’.1 The sketch falls between views of Melrose in the sketchbook, and an inscription on the page may read ‘Galash’, suggesting that this is a view of Galashiels from Melrose. Other inscriptions note colours and tones: ‘Grey’, ‘w[hite]’, ‘B’ [brown or blue], ‘Red’ and ‘Dark’. The rainbow is indicated by two arcs at the centre of the page. Turner visited Melrose on 8 August 1831.

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.857.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Tweed, with Rainbow 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-the-tweed-with-rainbow-r1134317, accessed 26 April 2024.