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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Colonnaded Screen of Carlton House, London c.1808-11

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 49 Verso:
The Colonnaded Screen of Carlton House, London circa 1808–11
D08023
Turner Bequest CXIV 49a
Pencil on white wove paper, 87 x 117 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘5’ centre, in gap in screen
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Carlton House, London, appears in a large watercolour diagram which accompanied Turner’s first perspective lecture at the Royal Academy in January 1811 (see the Introduction to the sketchbook), showing the whole of the north front with rusticated wings and a colonnaded screen and gateways in front, in which Turner applies naturalistic shading to a scale elevation (Tate D17119; Turner Bequest CXCV 148).1 There are further studies of Carlton House on folios 15 verso, 16 recto, 61 verso (D07983, D07984, D08039) and possibly 39 recto (D08011). For the history of the building, see under folio 15 verso (D07983).
The present page shows the central part of the screen from the north, its coat of arms supported by a roughly indicated lion and unicorn, with the pediment of Carlton House itself to the left beyond. Isolated details including a profile of the entablature and an Ionic capital appear at the top right. The sketch is continued across folio 50 opposite (D08024).

Matthew Imms
January 2012

1
Ibid., pp.31, 33.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Colonnaded Screen of Carlton House, London c.1808–11 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2012, 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-colonnaded-screen-of-carlton-house-london-r1134802, accessed 25 April 2024.