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 ... > Fonthill Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Fonthill: Distant View of the Abbey from the South-West 1799

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fonthill: Distant View of the Abbey from the South-West’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Fonthill: Distant View of the Abbey from the South-West 1799
D02184
Turner Bequest XLVII 7
Pencil on white wove paper, 303 x 469 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Inscribed in pencil ‘[?8]’ and in brown ink ‘6’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XLVII – 7’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the page turned horizontally, this is the basis of the watercolour View of the Gothic Abbey (afternoon) now building at Fonthill, the seat of William Beckford Esq. shown at the Royal Academy in 1800 (private collection).1 See also the composition sketch in the Dolbadarn sketchbook (Tate D02158; Turner Bequest XLVI 111). The arched structure on the right is a boathouse that was part of the park of Fonthill Splendens, the Palladian precursor of Fonthill Abbey; see D02202 (Turner Bequest XLVII 25).
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.338 no.335, reproduced.
Technical notes:
There are splashes of blue, orange and green colour. For a proposed sequence for the leaves of the disbound Fonthill sketchbook, with this page as folio 17, see the Introduction.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Fonthill: Distant View of the Abbey from the South-West 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-fonthill-distant-view-of-the-abbey-from-the-south-west-r1174233, accessed 24 April 2024.