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

Drawn with the page turned horizontally, the view is taken looking east along Rydal Water towards Grasmere, with the steep slopes of Loughrigg Fell to the left. This drawing seems to have been bound out of sequence; the other views of Rydal in this book are on folios 48 recto and 49 recto (D01036, D01037; Turner Bequest XXXV 34, 35); see also the coloured study of Grasmere with Rydal in the distance on folio 47 recto (D01089; Turner Bequest XXXV 87). However, Turner scholar David Hill believes that Turner returned to Rydal from Ambleside and made this drawing on a separate excursion. The distance is not great – hardly more than a mile – but it is difficult to see what point such a detour would have served him; no other studies exist to testify to a particular motif for retracing his steps.

Verso:

Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed by John Ruskin in brown ink ‘103’ (circled); ?in a later hand in blue crayon ‘15’; and by A.J. Finberg in pencil ‘141.50’.