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 Warkworth Castle from the North 1797

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Warkworth Castle from the North’ 1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 42 Recto:
Warkworth Castle from the North 1797
D00947
Turner Bequest XXXIV 40
Pencil on white wove paper, 210 x 270 mm
Watermark ‘1794 | J Whatman’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘40’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XXXIV 40’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, Turner shows the castle on a high bank above a bend of the River Coquet. The village and its church, dedicated to St Lawrence, are seen beyond. In the foreground are women carrying baskets on their heads, possibly containing salmon, for which Warkworth was famous. A finished watercolour of this subject was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799 with the title Warkworth Castle, Northumberland – thunder storm approaching at sun-set (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).1 The salmon fishing motif is elaborated here, with salmon netters in a boat on the river.
Hill has suggested that the thunderstorm is a memory of the one that hypothetically drove Turner into the castle keep to make the interior study on folio 41 recto (D00946; Turner Bequest XXXIV 39). The watercolour was mezzotinted in 1826 for the Rivers of England (Tate impression: T04812),2 an unusual case of a subject borrowed from a much earlier tour, rather than drawn specifically for the Rivers project.
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.328 no.256, reproduced.
2
See ibid., p.386 no.742, probably a spurious entry as noted p.328 under no.256.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
January 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Warkworth Castle from the North 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-warkworth-castle-from-the-north-r1150103, accessed 20 September 2024.