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 The Chinese Fishing Temple beside Virginia Water c.1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Chinese Fishing Temple beside Virginia Water’ c.1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 90 Verso:
The Chinese Fishing Temple beside Virginia Water c.1827
D22146
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 88a
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Partial watermark ‘rnard | 20’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this slight drawing shows the outline of the Chinese Fishing Temple (now gone) to the north-west across Virginia Water. It is comparable to the composition of the watercolour Virginia Water of about 1829 (private collection),1 one of two engraved for The Keepsake in 1830 (Tate impressions: T04618, T06141), although the more detailed study on folio 75 recto (D22116; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 73) was probably the main source of the composition.
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.519, pl.141 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Chinese Fishing Temple beside Virginia Water 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-the-chinese-fishing-temple-beside-virginia-water-r1148787, accessed 25 April 2024.