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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Midlands 1830 > Kenilworth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Kenilworth Castle: The Interior of the Great Hall 1830

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Kenilworth Castle: The Interior of the Great Hall’ 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Recto:
Kenilworth Castle: The Interior of the Great Hall 1830
D22040
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 35
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘35’ bottom right, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXVIII – 35’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this is a view of the west side of the interior of Kenilworth Castle’s Great Hall. There is a fireplace at the centre, with the blank arcade of the once-vaulted cellars below. Towards the left on the main level is the archway leading to the Saintlowe Tower, from which Turner drew a view looking across the hall in the opposite direction on folio 34 recto (D22038). There is another view of this archway on the verso of the present page (D22041).
The westward prospect of the castle on folio 34 verso opposite (D22039) continues a little way onto the present page, where trees frame the view. At the bottom right is a slight plan or diagram of part of the castle, which continues opposite.
Most of the sketches between folios 27 recto (D22024) and 37 verso (D22045) show Kenilworth. For the history of the castle and Turner’s subsequent watercolour, which Eric Shanes has described as a ‘synthesis’ of sketches between folios 28 verso (D22027) and 37 verso,1 see under folio 29 recto (D22028).

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Shanes 1979, p.156

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Kenilworth Castle: The Interior of the Great Hall 1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 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-kenilworth-castle-the-interior-of-the-great-hall-r1148681, accessed 23 April 2024.