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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales and the Marches 1792-4 > Drawings and Watercolours Connected with ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Various Studies: A Tree; a Group of Cottages; a Composition Sketch of a Landscape Including These Cottages and a Covered Waggon; Another Composition Sketch of a Rocky Hillside with Distant Mountain 1792

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Various Studies: A Tree; a Group of Cottages; a Composition Sketch of a Landscape Including These Cottages and a Covered Waggon; Another Composition Sketch of a Rocky Hillside with Distant Mountain’ 1792
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Various Studies: A Tree; a Group of Cottages; a Composition Sketch of a Landscape Including These Cottages and a Covered Waggon; Another Composition Sketch of a Rocky Hillside with Distant Mountain 1792
D40039
Pencil on white wove paper, 215 x 271 mm
Stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The group of cottages appears to be at Skyrrid Farm, and the lower of the two thumbnail sketches is a composition study for the view of Ysgyryd Fawr (Tate D00145; Turner Bequest XII P). The other thumbnail sketch, showing a rocky ledge with trees and valley beyond, is a composition in the manner of Ruysdael, unrelated to any known work of Turner’s at the date. Wilton suggests that the two studies may have been conceived as a complementary pair, such as Turner was frequently to produce later in his career.1 The larger study of a tree is executed in a slightly earlier style than the other drawings on this sheet. However, it may relate to the tall tree that dominates the subject in Tate D00144 (Turner Bequest XII O). In both watercolour versions of the subject, the tree retains the characteristics of that drawn by Turner on the spot in his first study of Skyrrid Farm.
1
Wilton 1984, p.37.
Technical notes:
The drawing is currently mounted as the recto. The other side is D00181 (Turner Bequest XII F)

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Various Studies: A Tree; a Group of Cottages; a Composition Sketch of a Landscape Including These Cottages and a Covered Waggon; Another Composition Sketch of a Rocky Hillside with Distant Mountain 1792 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-various-studies-a-tree-a-group-of-cottages-a-composition-r1141135, accessed 27 April 2024.