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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Tour of Yorkshire 1816 > Yorkshire 1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Cowthorpe Oak and Cowthorpe Church from the North 1816

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Cowthorpe Oak and Cowthorpe Church from the North’ 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Verso:
The Cowthorpe Oak and Cowthorpe Church from the North 1816
D10885
Turner Bequest CXLIV 9a
Pencil on white wove paper, 154 x 97 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is the left half of a double-page spread depicting the Cowthorpe Oak, continued to the right on folio 10 (D10886), opposite.
The sketch is the first of three studies of the Cowthorpe Oak, which in 1816 was one of the best-known and most venerable of ancient English oaks. Although by then in a state of some decay, its truck measured 20 metres in circumference, and the leading branch extended some 15 metres from the bole. It was estimated to be 1,800 years old and at its peak in about 1700 covered half an acre. It had finally expired by about 1950, but the remains of its base are still visible.

David Hill
January 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘The Cowthorpe Oak and Cowthorpe Church from the North 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-cowthorpe-oak-and-cowthorpe-church-from-the-north-r1144072, accessed 24 April 2024.