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 1813 > Chemistry and Apuleia Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Tall Tree c.1813

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Tall Tree’ c.1813
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 17 Recto:
A Tall Tree c.1813
D09915
Turner Bequest CXXXV 17
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 88 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘17’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CXXXV – 17’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a slightly more substantial sketch than the one perhaps showing the same tree on the torn folio 16 verso opposite (D09914) and running across folio 15 verso (D09912). With the sketchbook turned vertically, the topmost foliage of the present sketch runs a little over the gutter. Although the drawing is rapid and not very developed, there is what may be more than a fortuitous resemblance to the nearest tall tree on the left of Turner’s large painting Crossing the Brook, exhibited in 1815 (Tate N00497).1 For further discussion of various landscape and tree studies in this sketchbook in that context, see under folio 14 recto (D09910).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.93–4 no.130, pl.123 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Tall Tree c.1813 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-a-tall-tree-r1147870, accessed 19 April 2024.