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

This view is taken from the right bank of the River Greta, seen flowing in from the left, near its junction with the River Tees running to the right, and looks towards Rokeby Hall, hidden by the trees in the middle distance. It is sketched with unusual brevity for such a subject and by comparison with other drawings in this sketchbook, leading the present writer to suggest that it was raining when Turner visited the junction of the rivers on Wednesday 31 July 1816. Nonetheless, the sketch served as the basis of a studio watercolour, Junction of the Greta and Tees at Rokeby (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford),1 painted about 1816–17 for Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s projected General History of the County of York (see sketchbook introduction) and engraved by John Pye in 1819 for the completed part, History of Richmondshire.