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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Liber Studiorum notes c.1807-19 > Aesacus and Hesperie Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Study of Clouds c.1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Study of Clouds’ c.1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Verso:
A Study of Clouds c.1819
D13771
Turner Bequest CLXIX 13a
Pencil on white wove paper, 87 x 119 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Warm [...] cloud red’ top right, ‘Grey’, ‘Dun’ and ‘Blue’ down right-hand side, and ‘[?Grey]’ below centre, with extensive notes from top left (see main catalogue entry)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch of clouds is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. In addition to the scattered annotations recorded above, the top left quarter of the page is taken up with the following descriptions:
orange [blank] Greenish yellow
first cloud warm yellow [...] brown red
2d grey being in shade
3 Dun and yellow being in light
4 grey and red Light Edges
5 Blue shadow and vermillion lighter cloud | flatly over the grey the upper Clouds browned and | red lights with Dun shading
Dark uppermost clouds
Sky grey clouds dark
Given the wide variety of colours, Turner seems to have been making these notes at sunset, perhaps over a lengthy period as the colours changed. For other cloud studies, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.

Matthew Imms
September 2013

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Study of Clouds c.1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2013, 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-a-study-of-clouds-r1147494, accessed 26 April 2024.