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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Stonehenge Sketchbook [pseudo-Finberg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Stonehenge from the North-West 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Stonehenge from the North-West’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 15 Recto:
Stonehenge from the North-West 1811
D41388
Turner Bequest CXXV b 15
Pencil on white wove paper, 182 x 222 mm
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘15’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.B – 15’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The only intact trilithon on the western side of Stonehenge’s outer sarsen circle is seen at the centre, framing one of the trilithons on the far side of the inner ‘horseshoe’. The stone leaning across the intervening space has since been set upright, and another trilithon, on the near side of the horseshoe and on a direct line between the two already mentioned, has been re-erected. This is the last of a sequence beginning on folio 9 recto (D41382) all showing Stonehenge; for Turner’s other views of the monument, see the introduction to the sketchbook.
As discussed there, the pages appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Stonehenge’ in a manuscript list,1 while C.F. Bell gave it the same title in his own notes.2 Figures corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of each sheet.
1
A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.357, as CXXV(b) 2.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356D, as ‘CXXVB 15.
Technical notes:
The sheet is wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘205 | 2’ bottom right (partly trimmed). There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet.

Matthew Imms
May 2010

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Stonehenge from the North-West 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2010, 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-stonehenge-from-the-north-west-r1137537, accessed 24 April 2024.