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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Midlands 1794-1802 > Drawings Made on the Midland Tour > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Interior of the Ruins of Buildwas Abbey, Shropshire 1794

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Interior of the Ruins of Buildwas Abbey, Shropshire’ 1794
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Interior of the Ruins of Buildwas Abbey, Shropshire 1794
D00662
Turner Bequest XXVII A
Pencil on white wove paper, 276 x 215 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXVII A’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Buildwas Abbey, a Cistercian foundation (originally for the Order of Savigny), was built in the mid-twelfth century; in its pastoral setting near the River Severn it was a subject popular with Picturesque topographers in the later eighteenth century; Paul Sandby (c.1730–1809) and Michael ‘Angelo’ Rooker (1746–1801), among others, recorded it. Turner made a different view of the interior of the ruins in about 1798 (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester),1 and a smaller watercolour of Buildwas was at Christie’s in 1862.2
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.327 no.247, reproduced.
2
Sir Walter Armstrong, Turner, London and New York 1902, p.244.
Technical notes:
There is a blue paint smear at the lower right.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Interior of the Ruins of Buildwas Abbey, Shropshire 1794 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-interior-of-the-ruins-of-buildwas-abbey-shropshire-r1141050, accessed 25 April 2024.