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 > Devonshire Rivers, No.3, and Wharfedale ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Barden Tower up the Wharfe Valley from the South-East 1816

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Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Recto:
Barden Tower up the Wharfe Valley from the South-East 1816
D09880
Turner Bequest CXXXIV 77
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper with gilt edges, 179 x 254 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXIV – 77’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
From the wooded banks of the River Wharfe, Turner looks north to Barden Tower. Folios 19 recto and 20 recto (D09861, D09862; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 60, 61) are variations; all three sketches show the tower as the focal point in the distance, flanked by carefully drawn trees in the foreground. In the only instance of its use in the present sketchbook, in this case Turner has begun to add delicate blue-green watercolour washes below and beyond the tower, perhaps while he was at the scene.
The drawing on folio 58 recto (D09796; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 7) may be a further version, although the tower itself is not evident there. The compositions recall the watercolour Barden Tower on the Wharfe (private collection),1 apparently painted for Walter Fawkes in about 1809, and based on large pencil drawing (Tate D12110; Turner Bequest CLIV L) which was made from a similar viewpoint.
For other views of the tower see under folio 15 verso (D09860; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 59a).

Matthew Imms
July 2014

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.363 no.550, reproduced, as c.1815, without Fawkes-related provenance.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Barden Tower up the Wharfe Valley from the South-East 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 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-barden-tower-up-the-wharfe-valley-from-the-south-east-r1147376, accessed 24 April 2024.