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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rural Landscape with Cottages amongst Fields by a Road; Horses and Ploughmen Returning from Work 1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Rural Landscape with Cottages amongst Fields by a Road; Horses and Ploughmen Returning from Work 1809
D12240
Turner Bequest CLV 1
Pencil on white wove paper, 186 x 227 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil, ‘Horses and Plough man Returning from Work’
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘1’, bottom right
Stamped in black in ‘CLV 1’, bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch is unusual for Turner in that it lacks any distinguishing landmark or feature. Instead Turner records a low-key rural scene of small cottages amongst fields. The two foreground cottages appear to have been built in an old quarry. During the first decade of the nineteenth century Turner was particularly interested in working lives in rural communities. The way in which these cottages efface themselves is quite the opposite of the usually demonstrative situations of gentlemen’s residences. Typically he is also sensitive to bucolic events and notes the passing ploughman and his team.
Identifiable sketches once near this in the sketchbook, beginning with D12241; Turner Bequest CLV 2, could depict subjects around Cassiobury, near Watford, and on the nearby Grand Union Canal and it is possible that this scene is one of rural Hertfordshire or Buckinghamshire.
Verso:
Blank, except for an inscription by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘Book No. 164’

David Hill
June 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Rural Landscape with Cottages amongst Fields by a Road; Horses and Ploughmen Returning from Work 1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-rural-landscape-with-cottages-amongst-fields-by-a-road-r1134652, accessed 29 March 2024.