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 > Dynevor Castle Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Carreg Cennen Castle from the South-West 1798

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Carreg Cennen Castle from the South-West’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Verso:
Carreg Cennen Castle from the South-West 1798
D01526
Turner Bequest XL 37a
Pencil, watercolour and scraping-out on white wove paper, 135 x 95 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘56’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘XL – 37 a’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This dramatic subject is continued on folio 40 recto (D01527; Turner Bequest XL 38). Turner accorded Carreg Cennen considerable attention in his contemporary Hereford Court sketchbook (Tate D01267–D01270, D01341; Turner Bequest XL 17–20, 87). This is one of only two subjects in the present book to have been worked up to such an extent. The other (D01627–D01628; Turner Bequest XL 95–96), is mounted as a separate drawing.
The rich and sombre palette Turner uses here is an indication of his association of the castle on its dramatic crag with general ideas of the Sublime. It is surprising, therefore, that he finished only one known watercolour of the subject (currently untraced),1 which was probably executed for the Hon. Edward Spencer Cowper whose name is inscribed on the verso of D01267 in the Hereford Court book. Further views of Carreg Cennen in the present sketchbook are on folios 41 verso–42 recto and 45 verso–46 recto (D01529–D01530, D01536–D01537; Turner Bequest XL 39a–40, 43a–44).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.246 no.327, reproduced.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Carreg Cennen Castle from the South-West 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-carreg-cennen-castle-from-the-south-west-r1173765, accessed 23 April 2024.