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 Ely Cathedral: The Western Tower Seen from the South East 1794

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ely Cathedral: The Western Tower Seen from the South East’ 1794
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Ely Cathedral: The Western Tower Seen from the South East 1794
D00352
Turner Bequest XXI Y
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 208 x 279 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXI Y’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner made another pencil study of the cathedral from this angle, though from farther away (private collection). Both drawings may have been used as guides for a finished watercolour of about 1796, bought by Sir Richard Colt Hoare of Stourhead, Wiltshire (private collection).1 See also Tate D00369 (Turner Bequest XXII P). Turner reverted to the composition for one of the subjects of his series Picturesque Views in England and Wales, as Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, of about 1831 (private collection).2
Finberg inadvertently gave this sheet two numbers in his 1909 Inventory.
1
Wilton 1979, pp.320–1 no.193, reproduced.
2
Ibid., p.399 no.845, pl.191.
Verso:
Blank; some splashes of brown colour; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed, in a later hand ‘7’.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Ely Cathedral: The Western Tower Seen from the South East 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-ely-cathedral-the-western-tower-seen-from-the-south-east-r1141086, accessed 16 April 2024.