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 Study for a Composition of the Deluge c.1802-5

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study for a Composition of the Deluge’ c.1802-5
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Study for a Composition of the Deluge c.1802–5
D02198
Turner Bequest XLVII 21
Black chalk on white wove paper, 330 x 470 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘XLVII 21’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made with the page turned horizontally, this is one of three drawings that seem to be loosely related to Turner’s work on a large canvas, The Deluge (Tate N00493),1 probably first shown at his own gallery in 1805. The other two are D02199 and D02210 (Turner Bequest XLVII 22, 33), and a further possibly connected sheet is D02211 (Turner Bequest XLVII 34). None of these sketches bears any close resemblance to the layout of the finished canvas, but this is the most fully imagined study, with figures, a cliff and distant mountains on the left, and water flooding in round a tree from the right.
The inverted-V shape among the figures indicated on top of the cliff is similar to marks in a corresponding position on D02210, which seem to indicate a pyramid. It is possible that the subject in question is the drowning of Pharaoh’s host in the Red Sea. Compare studies for historical subjects in the Calais Pier sketchbook (Tate D04906, D04934, D04939–D04940, D04959; Turner Bequest LXXXI 5, 33, 38–39, 57).
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.43–4 no.55, pl.65 (colour).
Technical notes:
The sheet was irregularly torn diagonally from the bottom centre to the centre right. For a proposed sequence for the leaves of the disbound Fonthill sketchbook, with this page as folio 31, see the Introduction.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Study for a Composition of the Deluge c.1802–5 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-study-for-a-composition-of-the-deluge-r1174249, accessed 26 April 2024.