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 ... > Salisbury Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Salisbury Cathedral: Studies of Sculpture in the Chapter House c.1799

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Salisbury Cathedral: Studies of Sculpture in the Chapter House’ c.1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Verso:
Salisbury Cathedral: Studies of Sculpture in the Chapter House c.1799
D02334
Turner Bequest XLIX 79a
Pencil on white laid paper, 150 x 121 mm
Part watermark ‘1799’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the figure groups in the upper portion of this page are the reliefs illustrating scenes from the Old Testament which occupy the spandrels of the arcade above the sedilia in Salisbury’s Chapter House. They include episodes from the story of Joseph and his brothers. Below are studies of individual capitals from the colonettes dividing the sedilia; see also folio 80 verso (D02336).
Turner referred to these studies when working on his watercolours of the Inside of the Chapter House of Salisbury Cathedral, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799 (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester)1 and Chapter House, Salisbury, shown at the same venue in 1801 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).2

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.321 no.199, pl.45.
2
Ibid., no.201, reproduced.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Salisbury Cathedral: Studies of Sculpture in the Chapter House c.1799 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-salisbury-cathedral-studies-of-sculpture-in-the-chapter-r1174206, accessed 19 April 2024.