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 > Watercolours and Studies Relating to the ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Oxford: St Mary's and the Radcliffe Camera from Oriel Lane c.1793-4

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Oxford: St Mary's and the Radcliffe Camera from Oriel Lane’ c.1793-4
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Oxford: St Mary’s and the Radcliffe Camera from Oriel Lane c.1793–4
D00685
Turner Bequest XXVII X
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 528 x 389 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXVII X’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
An ambitious but unfinished work, based on the small watercolour of 1792 (Tate D00156; Turner Bequest XIV C), this sheet anticipates Turner’s treatment of light in drawings of 1795, but is certainly earlier, probably dating from 1793–4. The pencil drawing is quite different from that of a contemporary Oxford view (Tate D00154; Turner Bequest XIV A). Turner’s intention to produce a large watercolour perhaps for exhibition is clear not only from the subtlety of the lighting, but also from the complexity of the figure groups included in the foreground: students playing marbles or descending steps, dons looking on; a woman with a cartload of goods drawn by two donkeys; cart-horses with a laden cart, and a distant stage coach.
Technical notes:
The sheet was formerly folded laterally in two places.
Verso:
Blank; stained and dirty.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Oxford: St Mary’s and the Radcliffe Camera from Oriel Lane c.1793–4 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-oxford-st-marys-and-the-radcliffe-camera-from-oriel-lane-r1141176, accessed 19 April 2024.