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 ... > Petworth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Cockermouth Castle: the North Curtain Walls from across the River Derwent 1809

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Cockermouth Castle: the North Curtain Walls from across the River Derwent’ 1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Cockermouth Castle: the North Curtain Walls from across the River Derwent 1809
D07526
Turner Bequest CIX 14
Pencil on white wove paper, 229 x 374 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Bleaching linen’ by river, left of centre
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘14’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CIX 14’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For Cockermouth Castle and views from this sketchbook see Introduction. The view here is from the north, with the outer gatehouse at left, the kitchen tower at centre and the round (archers’) tower at right. The Lands lie on the left back of the Derwent, which fills the foreground while the River Cocker runs to the far right. This is the most distant of Turner’s views from this angle. Finberg identified it as the study for Turner’s painting Cockermouth Castle (Tate T0387; displayed at Petworth House),1 exhibited at Turner’s Gallery in 1810. In fact, D07536; Turner Bequest CIX 24 from the same sketchbook is much closer to the picture, as Butlin and Joll point out. However, there are similarities here too, and Turner draws attention to laundry being washed in the river, a feature he adopted in the picture.
1
Butlin and Joll 1984, p.77 no.108 (pl.115).
Verso:
Laid down. Finberg suspected there was another drawing on the verso, then ‘stuck on cartridge’, but none has been found during recent conservation treatment.

David Blayney Brown
August 2009

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Cockermouth Castle: the North Curtain Walls from across the River Derwent 1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 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-cockermouth-castle-the-north-curtain-walls-from-across-the-r1135640, accessed 26 April 2024.