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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North of England 1797-1801 > North of England Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tynemouth: The Priory Seen from across Prior's Haven 1797

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tynemouth: The Priory Seen from across Prior's Haven’ 1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Recto:
Tynemouth: The Priory Seen from across Prior’s Haven 1797
D00942
Turner Bequest XXXIV 35
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 210 x 270 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Inscribed ?not by Turner in pencil ‘Tynemouth Abbey’ bottom left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘35’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XXXIV 35’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject is drawn with the page turned horizontally. A colour study based on this drawing is Tate D00891 (Turner Bequest XXXIII T); this must have been made at the same time as the similarly coloured study of Dunstanburgh Castle (Tate D00890; Turner Bequest XXXIII S). Turner made a finished watercolour of the subject, probably based on the drawing, for the England and Wales series, in about 1829 (destroyed by fire in 1962).1 The colour study suggests that he intended to make a finished watercolour, perhaps for a commission: the inscription in uncharacteristic writing may not be Turner’s, but might be explained as the proposed title for a finished picture. Compare his elaborate copper-plate titles for plates in a planned but unexecuted book of ‘Views on the River Avon’, in the 1791 Bristol and Malmesbury sketchbook (Tate D00074, D00082, D00086; Turner Bequest VI 3, 9, 12).
1
Wilton 1979, pp.396–7 no.827, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
January 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Tynemouth: The Priory Seen from across Prior’s Haven 1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-tynemouth-the-priory-seen-from-across-priors-haven-r1150098, accessed 16 April 2024.