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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > London and Home Counties 1793-5 > Hertfordshire and Middlesex > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner St Albans Abbey from the North-East 1793

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Albans Abbey from the North-East’ 1793
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
St Albans Abbey from the North-East 1793
D00387
Turner Bequest XXIII M
Pencil on white wove paper, 282 x 394 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXIII M’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The core of St Albans Abbey is an imposing twelfth-century nave with transepts; the Lady Chapel at the East end is of the thirteenth century. The Abbey became a cathedral only in 1877. A pencil drawing of the Abbey from the south-east corner was sold at Sotheby’s, London, 28 November 1922 (130, reproduced). Another, showing a Decorated window, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (P 105–1922); there is a finished watercolour based on it, in the same collection.1 See also Tate D00345, D00346, D00385, D01100 and D01893 (Turner Bequest XXI R, S, XXIII K, XXXVI F, XLIV Q).
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.307–8 no.62, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed in a modern hand ‘14’.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘St Albans Abbey from the North-East 1793 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-st-albans-abbey-from-the-north-east-r1140273, accessed 18 April 2024.