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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Monro School c.1794-8 > Collaborations with Thomas Girtin for Dr ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin Buildings among Wooded Hills; a Lake in the Foreground and a Mountain in the Distance c.1795-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin, ‘Buildings among Wooded Hills; a Lake in the Foreground and a Mountain in the Distance’ c.1795-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Thomas Girtin 1775–1802
Buildings among Wooded Hills; a Lake in the Foreground and a Mountain in the Distance c.1795–7
D36557
Turner Bequest CCCLXXV 36
Pencil and grey and grey-blue wash on white wove paper, 183 x 235 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXXV – 36’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Provenance:
Probably commissioned by Dr Thomas Monro
Monro’s posthumous sale, Christie’s, London, 26–28 June and 1–2 July 1833 (day and lot number not known)
Bought by or on behalf of Turner
This was copied from a sketch by John Robert Cozens (1752–1797) in Beckford Sketchbook I, p.1, titled ‘Entrance into the Tyrol’ and dated ‘June 4 1782’ (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, D1975.4.1).1
This sheet was not published by Finberg in his 1909 Inventory, although he later annotated his own copy,2 allocating it the Turner Bequest number subsequently adopted. It is listed in the 1906 Manchester and 1912 Newcastle catalogues of the Fourth Loan Collection, but not in William White’s 1896 catalogue of the initial 1891–5 showing at the Ruskin Art Museum in Sheffield.3 It was presumably introduced as an extra or replacement work at an unknown date after 1895, hence the other venues prior to 1906 are listed here only tentatively.
1
Bell and Girtin 1935, p.51 under no.194; Charles Nugent, British Watercolours in the Whitworth Art Gallery, the University of Manchester: A Summary Catalogue of Drawings and Watercolours by Artists Born before 1880, London and Manchester 2003, p.88, reproduced.
2
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.1236, Tate catalogue files.
3
William White, Notes on a Biographical Series of Fifty Drawings and Sketches by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., Belonging to the National Gallery Collection, London 1896.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘48’, ‘23’ and ‘95’; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Buildings among Wooded Hills; a Lake in the Foreground and a Mountain in the Distance c.1795–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin’, 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-thomas-girtin-buildings-among-wooded-hills-a-lake-in-the-r1141259, accessed 26 April 2024.