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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Devon Rivers, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Rain over Dartmoor 1814

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Rain over Dartmoor’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 131 Verso:
Rain over Dartmoor 1814
D09638
Turner Bequest CXXXII 131a
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 152 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘G[...]’ left of centre, ‘G’ right of centre, ‘Travellers shelter[...] themselves | with turf’ bottom left, and ‘[?Dart]’ bottom centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg’s tentative reading of Turner’s inscription as ‘Travellers sheltering themselves with Turf’1 seems plausible; the rather hasty note is in place of any visual representation of figures, and the strokes at the top left presumably indicate oncoming heavy rain. Perhaps Turner himself sought protection beside or under a stack of cut peat turfs.2
For other definite or likely Dartmoor views, see under folio 8 recto (D09489).

Matthew Imms
June 2014

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.375.
2
See ‘Dartmoor Peat’, Legendary Dartmoor, accessed 17 June 2014, http://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/peat_moor.htm.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Rain over Dartmoor 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-rain-over-dartmoor-r1147187, accessed 25 April 2024.