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 > Tweed and Lakes Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Borrowdale, with Seathwaite in the Distance 1797

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Borrowdale, with Seathwaite in the Distance’ 1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 32 Recto:
Borrowdale, with Seathwaite in the Distance 1797
D01024
Turner Bequest XXXV 22
Pencil on white wove paper, 274 x 370 mm
Inscribed by Turner ‘Borrowdale’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXXV 22’ bottom left, descending vertically
Turner scholar David Hill identifies the view, drawn with the page turned horizontally, as having been taken from a spot near the road over Honister Pass to Buttermere from Borrowdale, in the valley bottom at Longthwaite. Seathwaite is visible higher up the valley, but as Hill points out Scafell, the highest range of hills in England, is obscured by cloud. The mountaineer and art historian Peter Bicknell confirmed this identification, pointing out that the torrent falling down the mountainside on the right is Sour Milk Gill.1
The drawing on the leaf now bound in following this one, folio 33 recto (D01025; Turner Bequest XXXV 23), ought probably to precede it as it records a scene farther north, which Turner would have reached sooner on his excursion to Longthwaite Bridge; see folio 35 recto (D01090; Turner Bequest XXXV 88), which Hill proposes should be placed immediately following the present leaf.
1
Oral communication.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed by Finberg in pencil ‘141.22’.

Andrew Wilton
August 2010

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Borrowdale, with Seathwaite in the Distance 1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2010, 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-borrowdale-with-seathwaite-in-the-distance-r1150196, accessed 23 April 2024.