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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Work for Earls Egremont and Lonsdale ... > Kirkstall Lock Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Lock on a Canal 1809

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Lock on a Canal’ 1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Lock on a Canal 1809
D12247
Turner Bequest CLV 6
Pencil on white wove paper, 186 x 231 mm (top and bottom left corners missing)
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Lock’, right
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘6’, bottom right
Stamped in black in ‘CLV 6’, bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This relatively hasty sketch depicts the view along a canal with a lock in the foreground and a bridge in the middle distance, left, with shafts of light breaking through a clouded sky beyond. The subject is similar to those drawn on D12243, D12258; Turner Bequest CLV 4, 17 and given the proximity of sketches of Cassiobury Park near Watford, possibly shows the Grand Union Canal.
For the canal, see note to D12241; Turner Bequest CLV 2.
Verso:
Blank, except for an inscription (?by one of the Executors of the Turner Bequest) in pencil ‘Sched 164.12’. The majority of pages in this sketchbook are similarly inscribed (for the significance of this see notes to D12241, D12244; Turner Bequest CLV 2, 4a).
Also inscribed by an unknown hand in pencil ‘Unmounted/ CLV/ Box 97’, bottom right, presumably in relation to a previous Turner Bequest box system in which the drawing was stored.

David Hill
June 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘A Lock on a Canal 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-a-lock-on-a-canal-r1134659, accessed 25 April 2024.