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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Meuse-Mosel, Luxembourg and Northern ... > Huy and Dinant Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Windmill, with Abbeville in the Distance 1824

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Windmill, with Abbeville in the Distance’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Recto:
Windmill, with Abbeville in the Distance 1824
D20117
Turner Bequest CCXVII 23
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 99 x 162 mm
Watermark ‘1821’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Corn’ towards bottom right (in accordance with orientation of image)
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘23’ top right and ‘247’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXVII–23’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Taken with the sketchbook turned upside down, this finely rendered study of a windmill with the Picardie town of Abbeville in the distance is one of two views produced by Turner during the last phase of his 1824 tour (see Tate D20116; Turner Bequest CCXVII 22). The artist has inscribed the word ‘Corn’ to the right of the windmill, perhaps a reminder of the grain being milled there or the crops which grew in the fields nearby.
Technical notes:
There are some small incidental smudges of black pigment at right. The paper has mottled and browned significantly, a result of the drawing’s prolonged exhibition and exposure to sunlight during the nineteenth century.
Verso:
Blank

Alice Rylance-Watson
January 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Windmill, with Abbeville in the Distance 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2014, 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-windmill-with-abbeville-in-the-distance-r1174316, accessed 23 April 2024.