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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > England and Wales Colour Studies c.1825 ... > Studies for Published 'England and ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner An Industrial Town at Sunset, Probably Birmingham or Dudley c.1830-2

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘An Industrial Town at Sunset, Probably Birmingham or Dudley’ c.1830-2
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
An Industrial Town at Sunset, Probably Birmingham or Dudley c.1830–2
D25250
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 128
Watercolour on white wove paper, 348 x 482 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 128’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Andrew Wilton has compared the subject and atmosphere of this colour study with the finished watercolour Dudley, Worcestershire of about 1832 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),1 engraved in 1835 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T05097, T06113, T06114), both having ‘obscurity and smoke hazily illuminated by the fires of industry’, with natural ‘light diffused through an artificial fog of haze and smoke’.2 Anne Lyles has called the present work ‘a remarkably radiant image’, projecting ‘an optimistic view of industrial activity’,3 following Wilton’s description of it as ‘a poem of almost lyrical enchantment with the new conditions in which the world assumed such grand forms’, contradicting John Ruskin’s reading of Turner’s works as evidence of (as Wilton puts it) ‘the tragedy of the industrial revolution’.4
The silhouetted buildings on the left are comparable with those on the left of Dudley, Worcestershire, but the overall landscape has a feeling of greater space and distance. In his survey linking Turner’s ‘colour beginnings’ to finished watercolours, Eric Shanes has suggested Birmingham as the subject.5 Comparable pencil sketches made in the Kenilworth sketchbook on Turner’s 1830 tour of the Midlands include Tate D21999, D22003 and D22023 (Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 14a, 16a, 26a).6 A colour study linked by Shanes to Dudley, Worcestershire is Tate D25350 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 228).
See also the introductions to the present subsection of identified subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.400 no.858, pl.195.
2
Wilton 1980, p.168.
3
Lyles 1992, p.54.
4
Wilton 1980, p.168.
5
Shanes 1997, pp.96, 98, 105.
6
See Warrell 2007, p.80.
Technical notes:
There is a fold down the centre of the sheet, which is more evident from the verso. The upper edge shows evidence of folding and freehand tearing, the sheet probably having originally formed half of a larger one. The watercolour ends at the fold, presumably indicating that Turner worked with the other half tucked away.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions at the bottom left: in pencil ‘AB 93 P’; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram above ‘CCLXIII – 128’; and in pencil ‘CCLXIII 128’.

Matthew Imms
March 2013

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘An Industrial Town at Sunset, Probably Birmingham or Dudley c.1830–2 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, 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-an-industrial-town-at-sunset-probably-birmingham-or-dudley-r1144251, accessed 18 September 2024.