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 Abbey Seen from the South through Trees 1799

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fonthill Abbey Seen from the South through Trees’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Fonthill Abbey Seen from the South through Trees 1799
D02190
Turner Bequest XLVII 13
Pencil on white wove paper, 333 x 469 mm
Inscribed in brown ink ‘1’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XLVII 13’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made with the page turned horizontally, this drawing was used as the basis for one of the watercolours in Turner’s series of five views of Fonthill executed for Beckford and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1800: South view of the Gothic Abbey (Evening) now building at Fonthill, the seat of W. Beckford, Esq. (Montréal Museum of Fine Arts).1 It is possible that the large, broodingly romantic colour study (Tate D04172; Turner Bequest LXX U) is also based on this drawing.
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.338 no.337, pl.53.
Technical notes:
For a proposed sequence for the leaves of the disbound Fonthill sketchbook, with this page as folio 23, see the Introduction.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Fonthill Abbey Seen from the South through Trees 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-abbey-seen-from-the-south-through-trees-r1174240, accessed 23 April 2024.