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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Architectural and Other Subjects c.1797 ... > Academical Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Trees in a Landscape with Distant Hills c.1798-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trees in a Landscape with Distant Hills’ c.1798-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Verso:
Trees in a Landscape with Distant Hills c.1798–9
D01858
Turner Bequest XLIII 40a
Pen and ink and wash on blue laid paper prepared with a red-brown ground, 140 x 216 mm
Stamped in black ‘XLIII – 40a’ bottom right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the page turned horizontally, this composition study is perhaps related to the landscape that Turner drew in his contemporary Lancashire and North Wales sketchbook (Tate D01937; Turner Bequest XLV 19a), and a watercolour study which is perhaps an unfinished work connected with his project to illustrate the destruction of the Welsh Bards (Tate D04165; Turner Bequest LXX N).
There is a study on folio 47 verso (D01870; Turner Bequest 46a) which has a similar broad landscape punctuated by two trees, in which boat-building activity seems to be in train in the foreground; it has the air of an ancient, perhaps classical subject. See also folio 46 verso (D01868; Turner Bequest XLIII 45a), where another view with distant hills has ships on a waterway in the foreground.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Trees in a Landscape with Distant Hills c.1798–9 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-trees-in-a-landscape-with-distant-hills-r1174058, accessed 26 April 2024.