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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales 1798 > Hereford Court Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Chepstow: View of the Town, Looking North 1798

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Chepstow: View of the Town, Looking North’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Recto:
Chepstow: View of the Town, Looking North 1798
D01260
Turner Bequest XXXVIII 11
Pencil on white wove paper, 229 x 332 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘11’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XXXVIII 11’ bottom left, descending vertically
The subject was drawn with the page turned horizontally. Chepstow, overlooking a broad curve of the River Wye not far from its confluence with the Severn, is the most impressive of all the castles built along the English-Welsh border in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Turner had drawn it on his first tour of the Wye Valley in 1792 (Tate D00130; Turner Bequest XII A), and made a view of castle and bridge (Courtauld Gallery, London)1 for John Walker’s Copper-Plate Magazine in about 1794. Although he certainly visited the place in the course of his South Wales tour of 1795 (see the Smaller South Wales and South Wales sketchbooks; Tate; Turner Bequest XXV, XXVI), he did not investigate the castle extensively. However, there are further drawings made at Chepstow in the Dynevor Castle sketchbook (Tate D01491–D01492, D01624– D01626; Turner Bequest XL 17a–18, 93–94).
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.311 no.88, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Chepstow: View of the Town, Looking North 1798 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-chepstow-view-of-the-town-looking-north-r1173152, accessed 24 April 2024.