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 Virginia Water, with the Chinese Fishing Temple Beyond and the Clockcase in the Distance c.1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Virginia Water, with the Chinese Fishing Temple Beyond and the Clockcase in the Distance’ c.1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 80 Recto:
Virginia Water, with the Chinese Fishing Temple Beyond and the Clockcase in the Distance c.1827
D22126
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 78
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘w’ on (willow?) tree at centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘78’ bottom left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXVIII – 78’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this view of the Chinese Fishing Temple on the north side of Virginia Water continues to the right across folio 79 verso opposite (D22125; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 77a) with Johnson’s Pond, and a little further still on folio 78 verso (D22123; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 76a) , with what appears to be the Clockcase folly on the skyline.
This is one among several adjacent sketches which informed the second of two Virginia Water watercolours of about 1829 (untraced),1 engraved for The Keepsake in 1830 (Tate impressions: T04616, T04617, T06140); the watercolour has a tighter composition, showing only the Fishing Temple and Johnson’s Pond.
For other views around Virginia Water, see under folio 73 verso (D22113; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 71a).

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.359 no.520.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Virginia Water, with the Chinese Fishing Temple Beyond and the Clockcase in the Distance c.1827 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-virginia-water-with-the-chinese-fishing-temple-beyond-and-r1148767, accessed 26 April 2024.